Women are being granted illegal abortions by doctors based on the sex of their unborn baby, an undercover investigation by The Daily Telegraph reveals.
Doctors at British clinics have been secretly filmed agreeing to terminate foetuses purely because they are either male or female. Clinicians admitted they were prepared to falsify paperwork to arrange the abortions even though it is illegal to conduct such “sex-selection” procedures.
Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, said: “I’m extremely concerned to hear about these allegations. Sex selection is illegal and is morally wrong. I’ve asked my officials to investigate this as a matter of urgency.”
I am a bit puzzled by the moral outrage expressed by the British govt. I am guessing that a fully acceptable reason for an abortion (from the govt’s perspective) is for a woman to explain that being pregnant would be very inconvenient at that time (e.g. due to her career, etc.).
So killing a fetus for convenience is fully moral, but killing one because it is a girl (or a boy) is a moral outrage?
It seems as though (1) we accept the view of the pro-choice lobby, that a fetus is merely a lump of tissue, and its removal falls fully within the purview of the pregnant woman, just as removing her appendix, or a breast, or even some fatty tissue via liposuction — in which case it is ridiculous to suggest that ANY such decision is morally wrong. Or (2) we view the fetus as having at least some of the same sense of personhood as a baby, in which case abortion for anything other than the gravest situations would be fraught with profoundly moral implications.
In either case it seems crazy to say that abortion is fine for almost any reason except that the gender is wrong.