Fury is exploding across Britain after the nation’s top abortion charity, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), claimed on its website that terminating pregnancies solely because the baby is a girl isn’t illegal—despite clear government guidance branding it a criminal offense, sparking accusations of normalizing a “repugnant” practice rooted in gender bias.
Campaigners are horrified as fresh Department of Health data exposes a “statistically significant” skew in birth ratios among Indian-origin women, estimating around 400 baby girls were aborted for their sex between 2017 and 2021, with third-child ratios spiking to 113 boys per 100 girls compared to the national average.
BPAS doubles down, insisting the Abortion Act is “silent” on fetal sex as a ground for termination and that such cases are “vanishingly rare,” though they admit sex might factor in for health reasons like sex-specific conditions—drawing swift rebukes from the government, which claims that sex-selective abortion “will not be tolerated” and must be reported to police as a crime.
Critics like pro-life spokeswoman Catherine Robinson blast the charity’s stance as “irresponsible,” warning it risks encouraging terminations and making it tougher for women to resist bullying from husbands or in-laws demanding male heirs, even among educated second-generation immigrants.