London, : The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) has today challenged the decision by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) not to prosecute two abortionists who authorised abortions based on the sex of the child.
This decision by the CPS has been taken despite admitting that there is enough evidence to pursue a prosecution. The CPS claims that prosecutions would "not be in the public interest". Commenting on the case, SPUC’s general secretary and senior political officer Paul Tully told the press today:
"If offering to kill a child, for payment, for such a callous reason as that she is the 'wrong sex,' is not against the public interest, then it is hard to think anything could be.
"However, prosecuting the doctors responsible is not the most important matter. Stopping the organisations that countenance this kind of practice, such as the abortion clinics and the Department of Health’s Sexual Health Team, is much more important. These are the bodies that Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, should seek to clamp down upon.
"Last year the government's Chief Medical Officer wrote to all abortion clinics and NHS abortion hospitals spelling out the limited grounds for abortion in law. This appears to have made no difference at all to the widespread illicit practice of abortion on demand.
"MPs like Anna Soubry, the health minister, and Department of Health officials continue to prompt doctors to offer abortion on demand. Those responsible for the appalling tide of abortions in Britain have entirely ignored the Chief Medical Officer’s letter and continue to follow official guidance requiring doctors to provide abortion virtually on demand.
"The Abortion Act is morally wrong and medically ill-founded - and it demonstrates how legalising abortion for 'hard cases' is so easily abused. Sex-discrimination abortion is just one example. Since being appointed as health secretary, Jeremy Hunt has done nothing to enforce any of the grounds for abortion required in the law. His predecessor, Andrew Lansley, declared in the wake of The Daily Telegraph story last year, that it was his job as Health Secretary to enforce the law in this area, yet neither he nor Mr Hunt have made any impact on abortion on demand. The non-prosecution of blatant abuses shows how difficult this will be."
For media enquiries please call Paul Tully:
Notes for editors
In February 2012 Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper published reports and videos showing doctors authorising abortions on the grounds that the mother did not want a child of a particular sex, usually a girl. In one Daily Telegraph video, consultant Prabha Sivaraman, who at the time worked for private clinics and NHS hospitals in Manchester, was filmed telling a pregnant mother who requested an abortion because she was carrying a girl: "I don’t ask questions. If you want a termination, you want a termination".
Another consultant at a private Harley Street clinic, Claudine Domoney, agreed to arrange for a woman to abort a boy after being told that she and her husband already had a son from his first marriage. At the Calthorpe Clinic in Edgbaston, Birmingham, Dr Raj Mohan was filmed authorising a sex-selective abortion even though he told the woman: "It’s like female infanticide, isn’t it?"
The Daily Telegraph has now reported that following a 19 month trial, the CPS concluded there was enough evidence to prosecute Dr Mohan and Dr Sivaraman for an attempted breach of the Abortion Act, but would not go ahead as it was not in the "public interest".