Two abortion clinics were facing a police investigation today over claims they offer mothers illegal terminations based on the sex of their unborn child.
Tory MP Nadine Dorries said she was reporting 132 Healthwise clinic in Harley Street and Pall Mall Medical in Manchester to the police after doctors were secretly filmed apparently agreeing to carry out abortions because foetuses were either male or female.
Health Secretary Andrew Lansley launched an investigation, saying he was "extremely concerned" about the claims. But after doctors were also filmed allegedly admitting that they were prepared to falsify paperwork to arrange the illegal abortions, Ms Dorries said the police should take over. "This is wrong. It is a criminal act," she told the Evening Standard.
"They have broken the law. It is not Andrew Lansley's place to investigate, it is the police's place to investigate. I will report them to the police who will then have to do an investigation and then have to report their findings to the CPS. They will then have to make a decision on whether to prosecute."
Ms Dorries, a former nurse, believes the doctors have contravened the Perjury Act by offering to falsify records. In the UK, abortions on the grounds of sex are illegal under the 1967 Abortion Act.
She intervened after the Daily Telegraph said undercover reporters accompanied pregnant women to nine clinics in different parts of the country and claimed 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.
They included consultants Claudine Domoney, to whom the pregnant woman was referred to by 132 Healthwise, and consultant Prabha Sivaraman who works for Manchester's Pall Mall Medical Centre.
Stephanie Byrom, chief executive of Pall Mall Medical, denied the clinic offered sex-selection abortions and told the Daily Telegraph it would take "immediate action" if one of its consultants had breached rules. She added: "We categorically confirm that the service is only offered on medical grounds.
"The information we have is that the service has not been sought on the grounds of gender determination. If we are provided with any information that one of our consultants has breached this then we will take immediate action. We take the provision of the law concerning terminations very seriously."
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In 2010 there were 189,574 terminations in England and Wales, an eight per cent increase in a decade. Fears have been raised that advances in blood tests have fuelled a rise in "designer babies" because gender can be determined much earlier.
