CPS backed in abortions controversy

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has supported a Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decision not to charge two doctors over claims they offered abortions based on gender.

Last month, the DPP, Keir Starmer QC, launched an examination of the CPS’ reasons after the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt called for “urgent clarification”.

The case involving doctors from Birmingham and Manchester was highlighted in a Daily Telegraph investigation and 50 politicians signed a letter to the paper complaining that offences against the Abortion Act were not being pursued.

This week Mr Starmer said the law does not expressly ban gender-specific abortions, although it does prohibit any abortion without two medical practitioners deciding the health risks of continuing with a pregnancy outweigh those of termination. He said: “On the facts of these cases, it would not be possible to prove that either doctor authorised an abortion on gender-specific grounds alone ... The only basis for a prosecution would be that although we could not prove these doctors authorised a gender-specific abortion, they did not carry out a sufficiently robust assessment of the risks.”

He agreed there was “sufficient evidence” to prosecute, but it was not in the public interest and a professional inquiry was ongoing.

Both doctors have been referred to the General Medical Council and had conditions imposed on their registration.

Neil Addison, a Catholic barrister specialising in abortion cases, said that the interesting point was an apparent acknowledgement of the difficulty in getting a conviction, rather than any public interest value, which prompted the decision not to prosecute.

“The DPP is very clear that there is nothing in the act that prevents sex selection, which is obviously contrary to what everybody has assumed up to now,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales said: “People are right to be outraged that some parents are seeking to use abortion as a means of gender selection. It is the worst form of discrimination to kill a baby because she is the ‘wrong’ gender.”