Investigation into abortions based on gender

An investigation into claims that some doctors are granting women illegal abortions based on the sex of their unborn baby has been launched by Britain’s department of health.

It has been sparked by an undercover newspaper investigation into sex-selection abortions, secretly filming doctors at British clinics agreeing to terminate foetuses because they were either male or female.

The doctors were also allegedly recorded admitting they were prepared to falsify paperwork to arrange the illegal abortions.

UK health secretary Andrew Lansley said he was “extremely concerned” about the allegations made by The Daily Telegraph, and has instructed officials investigate.

He 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.”

The newspaper said undercover reporters accompanied pregnant women to nine clinics in different parts of the country. It said that in three cases, doctors were recorded offering to arrange terminations after being told the women did not want to go ahead with the pregnancy because of their unborn child’s sex.

In Britain, abortions are allowed on certain grounds, including that continuing with the pregnancy would be a greater risk to the woman’s life, physical or mental health than ending the pregnancy; continuing would be more of a risk to the physical or mental health of any of the woman’s existing children; and there is a real risk the child would have a serious physical or mental disability.

In September, Conservative Party backbencher Nadine Dorries and Labour’s Frank Field lost a parliamentary vote on the issue of counselling. They wanted to prevent non-statutory abortion providers such as Marie Stopes and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service from offering counselling.

Ms Dorries said that, because they received money for carrying out terminations, the organisations had a vested interest.

A spokeswoman for the department said it would contact police: “Criminal offences may have been committed and we will take urgent action. We will be speaking to the [General Medical Council] to ask them to investigate individual clinicians and we have asked the [Care Quality Commission] to urgently inspect the named clinics.

“The chief medical officer will be writing out this morning to all abortion clinics, NHS hospitals and primary care trusts to remind them of their responsibilities and the requirements of the Abortion Act.”

13,000 Irish travel to UK

More than 13,000 Irishwomen travelled to Britain in three years for abortions.

The figures released by the UK health department show that 4,374 women with an address in Dublin travelled to Britain — 1,238 in 2008; 1,553 in 2009 and 1,583 in 2010.

The figures show in the three years:

* 957 women travelled from Cork.

* 570 travelled women from Galway.

* 460 women travelled from Limerick.

* 316 travelled from Kerry.

* 90 travelled from Leitrim.

Many opted to omit their address, with 1,012 not stating their county of origin.

While there has been an overall drop year-on-year from 4,600 in 2008 to 4,402 in 2010, there has been an increase in women with addresses in large urban areas.

— Aisling Hussey