Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what research his Department has (a) conducted and (b) evaluated into the circumstances in which a typical abortion is performed on the grounds that it is necessary to prevent the physical or mental health of any existing children of the family of the pregnant woman; and if he will make a statement.

No research has been commissioned by the Department. It is for two doctors, in the light of their clinical opinion of the circumstances of the pregnant woman's individual case, to form an opinion in good faith that one and the same of the lawful grounds in the Abortion Act are met.