UK health secretary to report abortion clinics to police

PanARMENIAN.Net - Andrew Lansley, the UK Health Secretary, is to report the abortion clinics and doctors at the centre of a Daily Telegraph investigation to the police and General Medical Council.

The Daily Telegraph discovered that women were being granted illegal abortions by doctors based on the sex of their unborn baby.

Doctors at British clinics have been secretly filmed agreeing to terminate foetuses purely because they are either male or female. Clinicians admitted they were prepared to falsify paperwork to arrange the abortions even though it is illegal to conduct such “sex-selection” procedures, The Telegraph reports.

In the wake of the disclosures, Mr Lansley convened an urgent meeting this morning of his top officials and decided to refer the matter to the police and medical authorities. The Chief Medical Officer is also writing to all abortion clinics to remind them of their “responsibilities”.

In a statement, the Department of Health said: “Following this mornings reports in the Telegraph, we will be speaking to the police. Criminal offences may have been committed and we will take urgent action. We will be speaking to the GMC to ask them to investigate individual clinicians and we have asked the Care Quality Commission to urgently inspect the named clinics.”

Meanwhile, abortion rate in Armenia is dropping, with 4 births per 1 abortion noted in 2011 against 4 abortions per 1 birth in past years, according to the chief obstetrician-gynecologist of Armenian Ministry of Health.

“The 1996’s National Program for Reproductive Health is yielding results, with major changes occurring in the consciousness of people who won't abort pregnancy without strong reasons,” Razmik Abrahamyan said.