Health worker threatened with sack for sharing abortion views reinstated

by Hilary White

LONDON, January (LifeSiteNews.com) – Margaret Forrester, a Christian mental health worker who was threatened with firing after discussing the harms of abortion with co-workers, has been reinstated at her job. 

The 39-year-old Forrester was suspended from her job with National Health Service just before Christmas after she told colleagues privately that she was worried women considering abortion were not being given full information on the impact of the procedure.

She gave colleagues a booklet containing testimonies from women who had struggled with post-abortion syndrome. Forrester was later called before her superiors and suspended for “distributing materials some people may find offensive.”

The Christian Legal Centre (CLC) reports that she has now been offered a better position, and has accepted.

Forrester said she was “pleased,” saying it is a “victory for freedom of speech.”

“It was incredible that I was suspended in the first place, just because I expressed a personal opinion,” she said. “I should be able to express my opinion privately without fear and act freely in good conscience.”

Andrea Minichiello Williams, barrister and Chief Executive of the CLC, said the case is just another example of a worrying trend of official intolerance against conscientious Christians.

“The level of intolerance in the public sphere, demonstrated increasingly in public sector employment, is deeply worrying,” she said. “We hope that today’s decision by the NHS will help to reverse the tide of intolerance.

“Nobody wants to live in the kind of society where people lose their job for expressing a moderate opinion in a private conversation.”

Williams said that the lack of information offered to women on the long-term harms of abortion is “bad medical practice.”

“Well known research has confirmed that abortion can be harmful to mothers and there should be freedom to express that opinion privately and publicly,” she said.

“Women need to be able to make a fully informed decision about having an abortion, as it will impact their lives forever. They need to be made aware of all of the risks, including the well documented mental health risks.”