This week Ann Furedi, Chief Executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), attracted strong criticism after stating that women are free under the law to have an abortion on the basis of their child's sex.
Speaking to the online magazine Spiked, she said: "The woman gives her reasons, the doctor decides on the grounds as set out in the law ... there is no legal requirement to deny a woman an abortion if she has a sex preference, providing that the legal grounds are still met.
"The law is silent on the matter of gender selection, just as it is silent on rape."
Read more (Telegraph) >
Challenging the comments in a debate on BBC Radio 4, journalist Yasmin Alibhai Brown said that sex selection abortion is not a 'choice' since many women were pressured into aborting female babies by their family members.
"The woman, if she was independently making the choice as a mother, would not choose to get rid of her baby for the reason that the feotus is female. There are people around her saying there are consequences," she said.
Listen to the full debate on BBC iPlayer (33m 28s - 42m 46s) >