Department of health seeks to sanitise its abortion partners : The Health Secretary has announced that abortion clinics are going to be subject to "unannounced inspections" and scrutiny by a team of regulators.

The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) warned today that this would amount to a complete whitewash of the abuses of the Abortion Act, which destroys 550 babies every day, leaving women suffering physically and mentally as a result.

Commenting on Mr Lansley's statement, Paul Tully, General Secretary of SPUC, said: "This is clearly an exercise by the department of health to sanitise its abortion partners following scandals such as the 'wrong sex' abortions, where the Telegraph found evidence of doctors lying about the grounds for abortion."

Abortion on demand is not lawful under the Abortion Act, yet that is precisely what the Department of Health promotes through its influential Whitehall group, the Sexual Health Team, insisting that doctors and hospitals must offer abortion as an NHS 'service' which must be available to everyone. 

"Many hospitals and PCTs now have contracts with abortion clinics because some NHS staff have a conscientioius objection to abortion, including those without any particular religion who object to abortion being promoted as family planning.  "Most doctors certifying that a woman is at risk from her pregnancy are simply lying - and that is what the Department of Health, and especially the Sexual Health Team, prompts them to do.  The casual attitude of doctors who sign certificates without seeing the woman simply indicates the contempt for the letter of the law that has been engendered over the years," concluded Mr Tully.

For further information contact: * Paul Tully direct landline: 020 7820 3127 * Paul Tully mobile: 07939178719 * Communications department mobile: 07939177683