Occasionally I read an item of news so improbable I go back to the paper an hour or two later to check I haven’t imagined it. So it was with the story that Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow is to allow anti-abortionists to protest outside its premises during Lent.

From February 10 to March 20, a group called 40 Days for Life will hold a daily 12-hour “prayer vigil”, starting at eight in the morning. Founded in the US a decade ago, 40 Days for Life typifies attitudes in America’s ultra-conservative bible belt. Yet it is endorsed by the Society of the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) Scotland, the organisation behind the latest anti-abortion campaign, Don’t Stop the Beating Heart, whose supporters include the Catholic Church in Scotland, the Muslim Council of Scotland and the Free Church of Scotland. Such influential backing might explain why the Queen Elizabeth has given this group its blessing – perhaps literally.

Although 40 Days says the protest will be peaceful, its very presence is inimical to the values of the medical profession and intimidating to patients and surgeons who must face them. And while the lobbyists say they will not approach anyone and are there only to offer information and prayer, their sanctimonious, pernicious picket has no place on property dedicated to science and health.

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You don’t need me to spell out that the decision to have an abortion is one of the most difficult and painful a woman will ever make, and only the calloused or numbed do so without serious soul-searching. No matter how good the reasons for taking this step you can be sure that few enter the hospital or clinic without trepidation, all too aware that they may well suffer remorse and regret ever after. At a time of such intense strain and even sorrow, women should not have to encounter judgmental ideologues weaving the Christian equivalent of spells around them.

Last time I looked, Scotland was governed as a secular country. Faith bodies can legitimately try to shape or inform policy and legislation, but other than in exceptional cases decisions are based on humanitarian and ethical principles rather than religious tenets. The idea that evangelists, of whatever creed, are allowed to try to influence the actions of those having a termination is an infringement of the rights of patients to safe, confidential and unpoliticised treatment.

Defending their position, 40 Days, like the SPUC, says that medics are not giving pregnant women full information about what the process entails. Maybe that is the case, but if I were considering an abortion I would prefer to be told the facts by a doctor rather than by zealots following an agenda so rigid it does not even accept that rape or incest are sufficient reasons to abort, and some of whose adherents remain implacably opposed even to contraception.

It is like returning to the terrible days before the Abortion Act of 1967, when women risked their lives in backstreets rather than face the consequences of an unwanted child or one they could not properly provide for. While no one would deny that all life is precious, extremist views that do not allow for the grey areas of imperfect human existence are more akin to superstition and voodoo than to a thoughtful, nuanced theological position that one can respect. It goes without saying that the unborn child has a right to be protected from harm, and from casual or unthinking annihilation, but the rights and circumstances of those already in the world must still take precedence. A termination is a regrettable necessity in many cases, but it can sometimes also be the most responsible, caring thing to do, even for the foetus itself.

Obviously I disagree with the beliefs of groups like 40 Days, but they, and all like them, are entitled to their views, and to express them in public in an appropriate way. After all, if we see them in the street, we can either have a conversation, or cross the road. If they deliver leaflets, we can read them or rip them up. If they have a slot on TV, clicking the off button is our prerogative.

What is indefensible, however, is giving them licence to set up stall at a state-funded hospital which is performing an entirely legal and legitimate operation. That one of the most advanced hospitals in the world does not recognise how wrong it is to sanction such blatant propagandists is deeply disturbing. Thanks to this decision, women whose abortion appointment is already a bleak date in their diary will have to endure even more of an ordeal. For an NHS hospital to condone this sort of harassment is scandalous. I suggest that for Lent this year, the directors of Queen Elizabeth Hospital give up this idea entirely.