THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A former medical director of the country’s largest abortion provider said it was “well known” that women were terminating pregnancies because of the gender of the child and that he had been asked by women to arrange the procedure for this reason.
Dr Vincent Argent, who previously worked for the British Pregnancy Advisory Service and is now a GP and consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, said he had “no doubt” that women were terminating pregnancies because of the sex of the baby and that he believed the practice was “fairly widespread”. This week The Daily Telegraph disclosed that women were being offered illegal abortions by doctors on the basis of the gender of the foetus.
Dr Argent said there were “an awful lot of covert abortions for sex selection going on” where women would have a scan or blood test to find out the sex, then ask for a termination without telling the doctor the real reason.
However, he said there were also “ones where the patient actually says that it is the reason she wants the termination of the pregnancy”. He confirmed that he had been asked to arrange abortions for this reason but had told the patients it was unethical and he could not help them. There is nothing to suggest that the terminations Dr Argent described were arranged at BPAS clinics.
Dr Argent also disclosed that he believed that some colleagues had arranged terminations relating to the sex of the foetus and they felt it was reasonable to do so. » | Claire Newell, and Holly Watt | Friday, February 24, 2012
