The Abortion Act 1967 states that non-medical reasons for abortion are illegal in England, Scotland and Wales. Reports in The Daily Telegraph discovered that doctors have secretly been allowing the termination of a pregnancy based n the sex of their child. Secret filming found three clinics guilty of allowing sex-selection based abortions. Andrew Lansley has reported those involved to the GMC and to the police for their criminal actions. Doctors who partake in this illegal activity run the risk of being struck off and imprisonment.
Two doctors are needed to consent the abortion of an unborn child before reaching 24 weeks. The only accepted reasons for termination are that the pregnancy poses as a risk to the mother or her existing children's health (mental, physical) or that there is a significant risk that the child will be seriously disabled (physically or mentally). By abiding to these rules, the one way gender could play a part is if a) the child's sex significantly affects mothers mental health or b) there was a significant chance that the child may develop a disability based on X/Y chromosomes.
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