In Depth:  Right To Life Charitable Trust

The Public Health Minister, Jane Ellison MP, said in late February that the Government will publish more detailed guidance shortly which will include a restatement of the Government’s view that abortion on the grounds of gender alone is unlawful.

The minister was also asked in a written parliamentary question how she plans to address the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) advice that the law is silent on the matter of gender-selective abortions and that the practice is not illegal.

It was reported in early December that the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, is to issue urgent abortion guidance to doctors following the Crown Prosecution Service’s (CPS) decision not to prosecute two doctors who offered gender selection abortions.

Doctors will now receive fresh guidelines making it clear that if there is ‘evidence that a certifying doctor has not formed an opinion in good faith, then the doctor performing the termination is not protected by the Act and has potentially committed a criminal offence by terminating the pregnancy’. Sources close to the Health Secretary say the issue has ‘crossed political lines with Labour and Conservatives politicians saying this was a problem’.