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’.
