A Matter of Individual Thought and Conscience? Grimmark v Sweden, and Strasbourg’s Approach to Conscientious Objection in Abortion Procedures

1. The right to obtain abortion remains one of the more divisive ethical topics. Vast differences in opinion exist about the morality of abortion. Consider, for example, the chasm that exists between the position of the Catholic Church that life is sacred and must be defended from conception, and the – admittedly fringe – view that even birth does not make a baby a person. It is unquestionably a subject on which ‘strong moral and religious convictions are held’.