Scotland has once again managed to turn a private Facebook discussion into a full-blown scandal. The culprit? A midwifery student with an opinion. The crime? Expressing it.
Sara Spencer, a 30-year-old American mother of three, currently training as a midwife in Scotland, found herself swiftly suspended from her placement with NHS Fife after daring to discuss her conscientious objection to abortion in a private Facebook group among her midwifery peers.
That’s right; she didn’t stand outside a hospital with a megaphone or disrupt a lecture with an impassioned speech. She simply participated in a conversation about the very ethics that shape her profession.
The response from NHS Fife was about as measured as a toddler on a sugar high. Instead of acknowledging the legally enshrined right of medical professionals to conscientiously object to abortion, the health board launched a fitness-to-practice investigation faster than you can say “thought police.”
Spencer, bewildered by the backlash, summed up the absurdity of the situation:
“It’s well-known that medical professionals in the UK have a right to conscientiously object to performing an abortion. As a student, I expected to be able to freely engage in discussion among my peers about the grounds for my conscientious objection, and to respectfully debate matters of medical law, ethics, and the philosophy of midwifery care – matters which lie at the heart of our profession.”
Her case has now become part of a wider debate on free speech, one that has even reached the corridors of the White House. During a recent meeting, US Vice President JD Vance took the opportunity to prod Prime Minister Keir Starmer about Britain’s apparent allergy to open discussion.
Cleared, But Not Quite Free
After months of bureaucratic hoop-jumping, Spencer was eventually cleared of all allegations. The university concluded there was “no case to answer,” though NHS Fife initially threw a tantrum over the decision before finally conceding defeat.
You’d think that would be the end of it.
Not quite. Even with her name cleared, Spencer received a firm warning from faculty about her social media activity.
The entire ordeal has attracted the attention of legal and free speech advocates, who are now calling for explicit protections for students who dare to express views that deviate from the approved script. Jeremiah Igunnubole, legal counsel for ADF UK, summed it up succinctly:
“Sara’s career has been negatively impacted by a cultural prejudice against people with pro-life opinions – present both at her university and in her workplace.”
When professional integrity collides with ideological purity tests, the results are chilling. Now backed by legal counsel, she is fighting for formal assurances that students and professionals will not face discrimination for holding and expressing their private beliefs.
Because if midwifery students can’t even discuss the fundamental ethics of their own profession without facing career-threatening consequences, what hope is there for free thought in the wider medical field?
The answer to that is as murky as NHS bureaucracy itself.
