An undercover investigation by The Daily Telegraph has revealed that British doctors in private and NHS hospitals are agreeing to provide women with abortions on the basis of their child’s gender, even though “sex-selection” terminations in England and Wales are illegal.
The findings were made after undercover reporters from the Telegraph secretly filmed appointments with nine different clinics across the country in which pregnant women requested to abort their child solely because they didn’t want a male or a female.
Three of the clinics were filmed agreeing to provide a termination after the women clearly said that the sex of their child was the only reason why they wanted the termination, despite the fact that it is unlawful for doctors to authorise an abortion on the grounds of a child’s sex under the 1967 Abortion Act.
Findings
In one instance, a woman was booked in for an abortion after telling a Manchester consultant, Prabha Sivaraman, that she didn’t want the baby because it was a girl.
Miss Sivaraman,who works for Pall Mall Medical in Manchester, responded by saying; “I don’t ask questions. If you want a termination, you want a termination.”
She later told a colleague that the abortion, which was estimated to cost £700-£800 in total, was “for social reasons” and that the woman “didn’t want any questions asked.”
On another occasion, Claudine Domoney, a consultant for a Harley Street clinic in central London, was filmed accepting an abortion request from a woman who was 18 weeks pregnant because the child was a male, and she “didn’t want to have a second boy.”
Some of the doctors were also filmed agreeing to falsify paperwork in order to enable the abortions to go ahead.
Enquiry
An urgent enquiry into the Telegraph’s findings has now been launched by Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, who said: “I’m extremely concerned to hear about these allegations. Sex selection is illegal and is morally wrong. I’ve asked my officials to investigate this as a matter of urgency.”
Care Quality Commission, the official body responsible for regulating abortion clinics, is expected to be questioned over the standard of its performance. MPs have previously criticised the regulator for taking its ‘eye off the ball’ over its regulation of care homes.
Comment
Anthony Ozimic, spokesman for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, said:
“This investigation confirms the reality of eugenics in modern British medicine, in which some innocent human beings are deemed too inconvenient to be allowed to live.
“Sex-selective abortion is an inevitable consequence of easy access to abortion, a situation to which the pro-abortion lobby has no convincing answer.”
Andrea Williams, CEO of Christian Concern and the Christian Legal Centre, said:
“Parliament never intended abortion to be available on the grounds of a child’s gender, but neither did it ever expect that almost 200,000 abortions would be taking place every year as a direct consequence of passing the 1967 Abortion Act.
“The Telegraph’s findings show once again how poorly this profession is regulated, and how easy it is for women to obtain abortions “on demand”, despite abortion being illegal in this country unless it falls within specific exemptions.
“These exemptions are routinely abused, leading to the loss of life and also huge harm to the women involved.
“This investigation demonstrates why we must continue the fight to reduce and ultimately end abortion in England and Wales.”
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