Tuesday, February 08, 2005

Slow going for illegal abortion referral investigation

Thanks to After Abortion for the tip.

Police inquiry delays BPAS abortion findings

British police are asking for a delay of a health official's report on illegal abortion referrals until they've completed their criminal investigation.


A government inquiry into the scandal of British women being helped to have illegal late-term abortions of healthy foetuses has delayed publishing its findings following an intervention by the police. Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer, had been set to report this month on his examination of the actions of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), the National Health Service-funded charity that was revealed by this newspaper to be directing women to a Spanish clinic, Ginemedex, which would abort healthy babies beyond 30 weeks' gestation.

....

The West Midlands force and officers from Warwickshire police are conducting criminal investigations into BPAS and a Birmingham general practitioner, Dr Saroj Adlakha, who arranged an abortion for a patient's healthy 311/2-week-old foetus at the Ginemedex clinic in Barcelona in 2003.

Dr Adlakha, who said she had been informed about the clinic by BPAS, also offered to arrange a similar termination for another woman. Dr Adlakha has since been suspended by her health trust and is being investigated by the General Medical Council.

...


Words fail me. I can't imagine what motivates the women who ask for these referrals or the people who provide them.

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