U.K. female infanticide

[sadie1263]

Officers from the Metropolitan Police have begun gathering material that shows three doctors agreeing to arrange terminations for women who wanted to end their pregnancies after discovering the sex of the child.

Today we revealed how a second doctor agreed to arrange an abortion for a woman wanting to end her pregnancy because her baby was a girl.

He agreed to go ahead with the termination despite comparing it to "female infanticide." Staff were also caught falsifying paperwork.
The Calthorpe Clinic has been exposed for illicitly completing abortion forms amid concerns that doctors are not properly consulting patients before agreeing to terminations.

A doctor at the clinic in Edgbaston, Birmingham, was also secretly filmed offering to arrange an abortion for a woman who said she wanted to terminate her pregnancy because the baby was a girl.
“It’s like female infanticide isn’t it?” said Dr Raj Mohan before agreeing to conduct the procedure. So-called “sex-selection” terminations are illegal.

Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, passed a dossier of alleged malpractice at the clinic to detectives. He also referred concerns over “criminal” practices at two other abortion clinics to the police and General Medical Council.

Police have now visited the offices of The Daily Telegraph to talk to the reporting team behind the investigation.

Earlier this week we exposed how abortion clinics across the country are illegally offering to abort foetuses on the basis of gender. There are growing concerns about such practices taking place in Britain’s abortion clinics.

It is understood that the NHS watchdog that monitors the clinics, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), had already alerted the Health Secretary to concerns over the documentation being used by the Calthorpe Clinic.

The head of CQC, which also oversees care homes and hospitals, resigned following a Department of Health report that criticised the quango.

The Telegraph carried out an investigation into sex-selection abortions after specific concerns were raised that the procedures were becoming increasingly common for cultural and social reasons.

In an article for this newspaper, Mr Lansley warns doctors that they will face the “full force” of the law if they break the 1967 Abortion Act. “Carrying out an abortion on the grounds of gender alone is in my view morally repugnant,” he writes.

“It is also illegal. Whatever an individual’s opinion on abortion … laws in this country are decided by Parliament, not by individual doctors. If some professionals disagree with the law as it stands they should argue their case for change. Simply flouting them in a belief that they know better is unacceptable.”

The Health Secretary added: “Anyone indulging in illegal activity must understand that they are running a great risk. The potential penalty for breaking abortion legislation is imprisonment. Doctors could be struck off. And we will not hesitate to pursue any evidence which comes into our hands.”
Undercover reporters accompanied pregnant women to nine abortion clinics around the country. Three offered to arrange terminations for women who said they wanted to end their pregnancy because they were unhappy with the sex of the baby.

When a woman who was 12 weeks pregnant had an appointment with a doctor at the Calthorpe Clinic, she explained that she wanted to terminate her pregnancy because she had discovered she was having a girl but her and her partner “don’t want a girl”.

“Is that the reason?” asked the doctor, who introduced himself as Dr Raj. “That’s not fair. It’s like female infanticide isn’t it?”

When the pregnant woman asked if he could put down a different reason for the termination, the doctor said: “That’s right, yeah, because it’s not a good reason anytime … I’ll put too young for pregnancy, yeah?”

The patient agreed, at which point Dr Mohan again said: “It’s common in the Third World to have a female infanticide.”

He then moved on to discuss the abortion process before asking the pregnant patient to book an appointment for the termination the following Monday or Tuesday.

more:
www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9103839/Scotland-Yard-launches-investigation-into-doctors-who-agreed-to-illegal-abortions-of-baby-girls.html

[Big Lin]

I think it's sad when people have abortions anyway but to have it because of the GENDER of the unborn child strikes me as totally immoral.

I read though that it's not just girl foetuses that are being aborted; some mothers are choosing to abort boys because they wanted a girl.

Very sad either way.

[Deleted]

Almost the saddest thing about this story is this quote:


When the pregnant woman asked if he could put down a different reason for the termination, the doctor said: “That’s right, yeah, because it’s not a good reason anytime … I’ll put too young for pregnancy, yeah?”


The story describes the mother as a woman, but if "too young for pregnancy" was thought to be a valid reason I'd love to know what age she was.

[toby]

Toby comments.;- let's be clear folks, we are not talking about British folk here, !! it's those dusky folk from the Indian sub Continent that are the villans !!

[Deleted]

Sad that this is still happening. I know that doctors in BC refused to tell the sex of the child simply because of this reason - too many terminations because the child happened to be female.

But they got around that - by going over to the States, and paying for a private scan.

However, must point out that it's not ALL Indian people that do this, only a few. And mostly those that come from India, not those that have been in the West for ions. It's a mentality that is very wrong, the pressure on these women to produce a male offspring is immense.

[Big Lin]

Mar 3, 2012 19:14:36 GMT toby said:

Toby comments.;- let's be clear folks, we are not talking about British folk here, !! it's people from the Indian sub Continent that are carrying out these gender-based abortions!

Toby, I've had to edit your post for language, It's not WHAT you said that crossed the line; it's HOW you said it.

Also, your statement isn't entirely true.

Many of the parents are Chinese; and, as I pointed out though no one seems to have picked up on it, it's also the case that some parents - particularly Western ones - are deliberating aborting BOYS rather than girls.

So it's not quite a straightforward ethnic question.