The Government was last night urged to open an inquiry after officials found signs that birth rates for girls and boys vary noticeably according to where their mothers were born. Photo: ALAMY
There have been calls for an inquiry after it emerged that birth rates for girls and boys vary noticeably according to where their mothers were born.
It forms the first official statistical evidence potentially backing up concerns that sex-selection abortions are being carried out in Britain.
Earl Howe, a health minister, disclosed the Government’s preliminary statistics in answer to a parliamentary question by Lord Alton of Liverpool, a crossbench peer and former MP who campaigns against abortion.
However the Tory minister rejected Lord Alton’s request for data to be collected on the sex of unborn babies at the time of abortion because recording the gender of foetuses “raises ethical and clinical issues”.
The Daily Telegraph now understands that Earl Howe is prepared to reconsider his refusal to collect data on the sex of unborn babies.
“The minister has told me he is going to reconsider the reply that he gave,” Lord Alton said. “There needs to be a broader debate about this question.
“If the data is collected then we know the scale of the problem.”
Andrew Lansley, the former health secretary, last year criticised the “illegal and morally wrong” practice following a Telegraph investigation into the issue.
After this newspaper received information that the procedures were becoming increasingly common for cultural and social reasons, undercover reporters filmed doctors offering women terminations based on gender.
As a result of the investigation, the Crown Prosecution Service is considering criminal charges against doctors in three cases.
The practice of aborting unborn babies on the basis of sex has long been considered a problem in areas of India and China, where boys are sometimes considered favourable for cultural or economic reasons.
There has been little official research on whether the practice is carried out in some of Britain’s immigrant communities. The Government said its new analysis was undertaken after the Council of Europe demanded statistics on the issue of whether more boys than girls are born to mothers of certain nationalities.
Earl Howe disclosed the preliminary statistics in answer to a parliamentary question.
“While the overall United Kingdom birth ratio is within normal limits, analysis of birth data for the calendar years from 2007 to 2011 has found the gender ratios at birth vary by mothers’ country of birth,” the Tory minister said.
“For the majority of groups, this variation is the result of small numbers of births and does not persist between years. However, for a very small number of countries of birth there are indications that birth ratios may differ from the UK as a whole and potentially fall outside of the range considered possible without intervention.”
The Telegraph has the full article
