Heavy stuff....

Catholic leaders have kicked up a fuss over abortion and put pressure on pro-choice Catholics to reconsider their views, or risk being denied the sacraments. Of course, Catholic Cardinals would never bully and threaten their flock, but this is a definate prod - support abortion and you forfeit Communion and your ritual link with God.

The leader of Scotland's Catholics, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, went on to urge the Scotish health service stop practicing abortion, that medical schools discourage it and that Westminster overturn abortion law (fat chance there mate).

He called abortion a "social evil" and an "unspeakable crime". He likened the abortion rate in Scotland to, "two Dunblane massacres a day" (roughly 35 unborn fetus's are aborted every day in Scotland).

I respect the traditional Catholic view of every human life as sacred. Medical professionals have the same ethos, yet do not view unborn clumps of disorganised cells as living human beings. They are potential lives.

As a secular young women, sexually active and pro-choice, I'm in no position to comment on Catholic doctrine but O'Brien's shock rhetoric and comparisons offend me none-the-less.

What does an aging male ecclesiastic know of being a pregnant women? He paints a picture of thoughtless girls having abortions willy nilly, because they can. I have friends who've undergone one, one for health reasons, the rest because of circumstance. None of them took their choice lightly, part of them died with their unborn child.

The idea of having one makes me feel very scared and sick but should it come to it, I would. Right now I could not give any child of mine the support, stability and complete love it deserves. I do not appreciate being told that waiting until I can provide these things, should it involve having an abortion, would be an "evil", "unspeakable crime".

Catholics are not being chastised for having abortions themselves but for tolerating the choices of others, who for whatever reason, want the proceedure.The Catholic Church, despite recent forays into liberal thought (contraception might not be the devils work after all), now appears as unbending as ever, in fact making a point of damning worshipers and sympathisers. How very Christian...