UK Bishop Laments Decision to Ignore Sex-Selective Abortions

Calls for ‘Soul Searching’ and ‘Honest Debate’

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Archbishop Peter Smith of Southwark joined his voice to those expressing concern that the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to prosecute two doctors who agreed to perform abortions based on sex selection.

In a statement Tuesday, the vice president of the bishops’ conference of England and Wales responded to the CPS decision, handed down last week.

“Many people are rightly very concerned about the CPS decision not to prosecute in the case of the doctors who were willing to conduct abortion as a means of gender selection, and I welcome the intervention of the Health Secretary,” he said.

The archbishop added that abortion “is always an injustice to the child who is unwanted, and sex selection through abortion is just one expression of that injustice.”

It is illegal in Britain to perform abortions for sex selection.

The Daily Telegraph last February published results of an investigation they did, which included film of two doctors agreeing to do abortions even though the mothers said their reason for seeking the procedure was because of the sex of their children.

The CPS said it found sufficient evidence to prosecute but that a “public interest test” had not been met.

Archbishop Smith called for more than just protecting British law: “The existing law should be enforced, but what is needed above all is a soul searching and honest debate about how our culture and society needs to change if the rights of unborn children are to be protected.”

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