Baroness Hollins
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(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Hollins (CB)
My Lords, as a mother with daughters and granddaughters, I find it unbelievable that aborting on grounds of female gender is not explicitly illegal; it certainly seems discriminatory.
As immediate past president of the BMA, I quote its guidance that,
“it is normally unethical to terminate a pregnancy on the basis of fetal sex alone, except in cases of severe x-linked disorders”,
which, of course, affect the male foetus.
The Minister recently stated that updated guidance is being prepared for abortion providers to make it,
“abundantly clear that gender selection is illegal”.—[Official Report, 12/2/14; col. 639.]
However, guidance alone is not legally binding. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists’ clinical guidance on induced abortion notes:
“Services should identify issues which make women particularly vulnerable”.
The RCOG includes domestic abuse and gender-based violence here and goes on to recommend that women should be referred to appropriate support services. Do we know whether this actually happens?
In January, the Independent attributed a reduction of between 1,400 and 4,700 expected live births of girls in the UK to sex-selective abortions. The Minister has in a previous response questioned the statistical analysis of the data, raising doubt about the Independent’s conclusion that sex-selective abortions are being performed. However women’s rights groups such as Jeena International and Karma Nirvana, which represent some of Britain’s minority women, are clear that gender abortions are happening here in the UK and that numbers are far from insignificant.
The reports available suggest that this is predominantly a cultural problem. Does the Minister agree that analysing the data regionally and by ethnicity could alert us to areas of concern? Will the Minister advise whether the Government would consider changing secondary legislation by amending regulations, thus providing clarity about the illegality of this apparently growing practice?