Abortion

Baroness Knight of Collingtree Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Knight of Collingtree]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they intend to take in the light of recent analysis of the ratio of boys and girls in United Kingdom families suggesting that sex-selective abortion is taking place.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe) (Con)]

My Lords, it cannot be concluded from the recent analysis in the Independent newspaper that sex-selective abortions are taking place. We are absolutely clear that abortion on the grounds of gender alone is against the law and completely unacceptable.

[Baroness Knight of Collingtree (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend recall that when I last asked a Question on this matter in October, the House was informed that it was impossible to prosecute doctors known to be aborting on gender grounds because the evidence was not strong enough? However, has the Minister noted the findings of the national census of 2011, which show that between 1,400 and 4,700 fewer girls have been born recently? This, it was said, can be explained only by the fact that termination of girl babies is going on, even though my noble friend has said this morning and NHS spokesmen have warned that such operations are,

“against the law and completely unacceptable”.

When are the Government going to stop this practice, and what are the implications if they do not do so?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the analysis recently reported in the Independent newspaper was based on census data, as my noble friend pointed out, for households with usually-resident dependent children. The gender balance of dependent children in these households is affected by a number of events that occur after birth, such as the age at which dependent children leave the parental home. As there are a number of alternative explanations for these observations, it cannot be concluded from the Independent’s analysis that sex-selective abortions are taking place. The best available data on which to base gender ratio analysis continue to be births data, which were the basis on which we did our analysis last year. I can tell my noble friend that that analysis will be updated on an annual basis when new data are available.