Religious leaders will call for the British government to tighten legislation surrounding abortions.

|PIC1|Prime Minister Tony Blair, as well as the Secretary of State for Health, the Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt MP, will be urged to make changes to the current laws.

Scotland’s most senior Catholic, Cardinal Keith O’Brien will led religious leaders in asking for the changes during a meeting due to take place this week.

This news comes just days after it was reported that the leader of Roman Catholics in England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor will use a meeting with the Secretary of State for Health, Patricia Hewitt to call for a change to Britain's abortion laws.

Julia Millington of Alive and Kicking, said, “The inspiring example this week of the two most senior Catholic Churchmen in the UK speaking out against abortion is to be celebrated. We hope that other religious leaders will follow suit.”

Millington also went on to say: “Recent opinion polls reveal that the nation is increasingly concerned about the scale of the abortion tragedy and supports a full Parliamentary inquiry.

|TOP|“Whatever his private spiritual journey, Blair's public voice on the early life issues is appalling. In 1990 he voted for abortion up to birth.

She concluded, “He was reproached for his pro-abortion stance by the previous Scottish Cardinal, Thomas Winning, and it is wonderful to hear that his equally outspoken successor, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, will also be raising the issue of abortion when he meets the Prime Minister this Wednesday.”

Just in May, the Catholic Church in Scotland expressed its alarm over plans by the Scottish NHS to introduce controversial “lunchtime” abortions; a move which left critics angry that NHS managers are reducing the procedure to something as trivial as a trip to the dentist.

Dr Anna Glasier, the clinical director for sexual health at NHS Lothian confirmed that women will be able to undergo terminations fully conscious in outpatient rooms when a pilot scheme is launched in 2007.

|AD|By removing the need of operating theatres, health chiefs are claiming the procedure could make abortions much safer by reducing the need for general anaesthetics and the use of powerful drugs.

The procedure, which takes just a few hours, was first introduced in England in an abortion clinic which said the shorter termination “could be quite easily completed during a working woman’s lunchtime”.

But the Catholic Church in Scotland and anti-abortion groups have reacted with fury to the new plans.

A spokesman for the Catholic Church in Scotland said: “The very serious danger with this method is that so little time goes into thinking through the consequences.

"The more streamlined the process becomes, the higher the risk that the woman will not fully consider her options. This will make abortion more convenient and make it less likely the woman will be able to pause for thought."

Margaret Cuthill, national co-ordinator of British Victims of Abortion, said: "This is minimising abortion to the point where it is like a trip to the dentist or the supermarket.

"Many of the women who come for post-abortion counselling with our organisation say they felt like they had been put on a conveyer belt and this new procedure will add to that."