IN THE struggle for more powers it was inevitable that the first one to be thrown Holyrood’s way after the summer recess would cause more panic than reports of a Lidl in Morningside. The Secretary of State for Scotland, David Mundell, must have had a summer break that all other UK politicians could only have dreamed of. In May he narrowly avoided losing one of the safest seats in Scotland following five years at Westminster during which he made less impact than the lavatory attendants.

For his lacklustre campaign he was rewarded with a promoted post miles beyond his capabilities by virtue of another harrowing of the Tories in Scotland.

This came with a built-in bonus: the right to tell Nicola Sturgeon that abortion law would be devolved to Holyrood and then to describe to the chaps in the New Club the look on the First Minister’s face on hearing the news.

For the ability to cause tumult and convulsions in UK politics, abortion law punches well above its weight, for there is no serious prospect of the law, as it stands, being changed or even of the current 24-week limit being altered. Mundell knew though, as we all did, that by giving abortion to Holyrood he was handing the parties of the left the keys to the front door of a house of pain.

The SNP can’t complain about it but would rather it had quietly remained reserved to Westminster, while Labour in Scotland know that it will engender a moral dilemma in the immortal souls of several of its senior Catholic members.

When the inevitable bill comes forward to reduce the time limit beyond which abortions can’t be performed, a campaign will ensue that, in terms of raw emotion and tribal intensity, will eclipse anything wrought by the independence referendum. The result will never be in much doubt, but the campaign will expose a widening seam of intolerance and hostility towards anything that resembles a traditional Christian position in political and civic Scotland.

Those of us, even on the left, who believe that the right to life of an unborn child is inviolate and ought to be protected under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will be deemed to be in possession of views that are unacceptable. In modern, socially enlightened Scotland, it seems, the right to hold a view rooted in traditional Christian belief is only tolerated if you keep it hidden or if it doesn’t clash with the mainstream. Thus, Christian opposition on moral grounds to possession of nuclear weapons, or to some of the Tory government’s austerity measures, or to the bombing of Iraq are permitted because they accord with mainstream, left-wing, secular ideology.

Yet when there is Christian opposition, no matter how mildly expressed, to abortion or to same-sex marriage; or support for the state of Israel then there is left-wing and liberal hell to pay.

I’m not saying that there aren’t some one-eyed zealots on the pro-life side. I disdain those Catholic ultramontanes who condemn women who are often forced by poverty and alienation to consider aborting their child yet who refuse to help them out of their deprivation, or who oppose the concept that God made gay people too.

Even those writers for whom I have the deepest respect and admiration seek not only to oppose traditional Christian attitudes but also to infer something sinister in them.

In the Sunday Herald yesterday Ian Bell raised the spectre of Protestant evangelicals declaring an interest who have (shock, horror) addresses in the "north of Ireland". They deploy "born-again voodoo" which is "festooned with myths". Thus rational debate about issues which explore the concept of human dignity and of what can reasonably be called human is diminished from the outset.

This follows a recent and familiar pattern in Scottish politics which has become an unfortunate by-product of the increased levels of political engagement abroad in the nation. I witnessed it at a fringe event during the SNP conference in Aberdeen last Friday where the BBC’s Charter Renewal was being discussed. This event featured a panel that included Fiona Hyslop, the Cabinet Secretary for Arts and Culture in Scotland, and Ewan Angus, a senior and respected executive in BBC Scotland. What followed ought to have embarrassed Hyslop, for the event often descended into a rabble. I witnessed a group of several people occupying one of the front rows audibly snarling at the man from the BBC, who, to the best of his ability, tried to answer questions politely and respectfully. His employers were likened to the Nazi propaganda machine and accused of being deliberately anti-Scottish.

One university academic stood up and loftily declared that the BBC was immune from Freedom of Information requests (it isn’t). The atmosphere at the event was suffused with menace and aggression. An East Dunbartonshire SNP politician tried to lecture Mr Angus, a journalist of 30 years standing, on news values. The man clearly, and embarrassingly, didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.

THE referendum campaign, for the most part, was a joyous and uplifting experience for those of us who were granted a ringside seat to witness it. The engagement of so many people in the process led to a few situations where the expression of views descended into mere abuse and thoughtless invective. These instances were seized upon by Jim Murphy and Alistair Darling as being characteristic of the entire Yes campaign, a deliberate falsehood which was to backfire spectacularly on the Labour Party in Scotland. Indeed Labour had its own issues with intolerance of competing views within its body, as many activists who supported the Yes side encountered threats, intimidation and expulsion from their local branches.

It seems it is not enough merely to criticise your opponent’s sincerely held position and to weaken it by means of reasoned argument. You must also accuse them of hate crimes and deny them the right even to espouse an opinion, simply because that opinion does not converge with your own definition of morality.

Being anti-abortion means you hate women, supporting the traditional concept of marriage means you are homophobic and being opposed to those forms of stem-cell research which resemble a human spare parts dealership means you are a practitioner of "voodoo".

There is no reason why in the debate on abortion law what is truly human cannot be debated in the same thoughtful and mutually respectful manner as the one on assisted dying.