Question: Is abortion on gender grounds illegal in the UK?
Answer: yes and no and maybe – depends who you ask.
Ask Britain’s biggest abortion provider, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, and they will tell you that the law is ‘silent on the matter’. Try the British Medical Association and they’ll say that it may be permissible in some circumstances. Ask an academic, like Professor Sally Sheldon, and you’ll get a nuanced answer about how the illegality of the practice is ‘far from clear’. Meanwhile, the government repeats in vain that ‘abortion on the grounds of gender alone is illegal’. So who’s right?
Well, everyone apparently. The way abortion law is framed means that contradictory interpretations of the law are possible. This confusion is trickling down to grass-roots level, contributing to complacency in the minds of those who think they can get away with it.
Many UK women are understandably confused about UK abortion law, which is hardly surprising given that the people who are supposed to be advising them all take a different view.
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