News

LONDON, September 5, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The UK’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has announced that it will not be pursuing criminal charges against two abortionists who were caught on camera agreeing to perform illegal sex-selection abortions, saying that such prosecutions are “not in the public interest.”

In response, a UK pro-life group has vowed to show the graphic reality of sex selective abortion outside CPS’s offices in London, while Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, has said he will be challenging the decision by the CPS. 

“We are clear that gender selection abortion is against the law and completely unacceptable,” Hunt said. “This is a concerning development and I have written to the Attorney General to ask for urgent clarification on the grounds for this decision.” 

Earlier this year The Daily Telegraph conducted a sting operation that caught the two abortionists agreeing to abortions based on the sex of the baby, something that contravenes the country’s Abortion Act 1967. Abortion is still listed in the British criminal code and can only be conducted legally when mothers list one of the approved reasons. 

But now, after a 19 month-investigation, the CPS has told police that the issue had failed the “public interest test” and that there is insufficient evidence to prosecute with “realistic prospect of conviction.” 

Image

Andrew Stephenson, head of the street campaign group Abort 67, which specialises in using large graphic images of aborted children in public displays, told LifeSiteNews.com this week that his organisation is not going to let the matter rest. Stephenson said his group will be immediately organizing a protest featuring a photo of a 22-week-old aborted baby girl directly in front of the offices of the Crown Prosecution Services in London.

“Our message to CPS,” he said, “is that they’re going to have to get used to seeing the consequences of what female sex selective abortions look like.” 

Click “like” if you are PRO-LIFE!

“We’ll use this as a starting point to demonstrate the ridiculousness of the 1967 Abortion Act and the current application of it, that the law’s being flouted and abortion is out of control in the UK,” he added. 

Keir Starmer QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions, said in a statement that the decision not to prosecute was “a very difficult and finely balanced decision”. He added that it is not “a policy decision” but is “based on the individual facts of the case” brought to light in the press last year. 

Jenny Hopkins, Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor for CPS London, explained the CPS's decision, saying, “The Abortion Act 1967 allows for an abortion in a limited range of circumstances but not purely on the basis of not wanting a child of a specific gender. While the abortions did not take place, attempting to commit a criminal offence – that is, doing something that goes further than just preparing to commit it – is also a crime in its own right under the Criminal Attempts Act 1981.” 

The CPS “carefully considered the evidence,” and concluded that “there is enough evidence to justify bringing proceedings for an attempt,” she said. However, she added that the CPS also “considered whether a prosecution is required in the public interest.” 

“It has never been the case in this country that where there is sufficient evidence a prosecution must take place, and in this case there are public interest factors both in favour of and against prosecution,” Hopkins said. 

The Telegraph quotes “sources familiar with the Scotland Yard investigation” saying that prosecutors were worried that the issue was “sensitive” and “political.” 

Stephenson expressed disappointment with the decision, saying, “What’s the point of having a law when it’s clearly been broken and the CPS will do nothing? Surely keeping the law is ‘in the public interest’.”

“Certainly not prosecuting is not in the interest of the baby girls who are going to be victimised even more now.” The decision, he said, is simply “more evidence that we live in a country that is more about the rule of man than the rule of law”. 

“There seems to be an agenda driving a lot of these decisions. There is obviously pressure coming from some inside source.” 

The Telegraph’s original undercover investigation caused an public outcry after revealing that doctors and staff at private abortion facilities, often heavily publicly subsidised, were more than willing to falsify medical and other information on forms to allow abortion, effectively on demand.

In one of the Telegraph’s videos, Dr. Raj Mohan told the undercover “patient,” “It’s like female infanticide, isn’t it?” He then suggested that the woman give a different reason on the forms. Another clinician, Prabha Sivaraman, was caught on film saying, “I don’t ask questions. If you want a termination, you want a termination” when told by the pregnant woman she wanted to abort because the baby was a girl.

The Health Secretary at the time, Andrew Lansley, 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.”

Stephenson commented, “I’d love to hear what the feminists have to say about this,” he added. “As soon as you enter this arena, nothing seems to make sense. as soon as you step away from the moral code, of protecting all human life, as soon as we say some lives are unworthy of protection, it opens up the whole floodgates. Immediately you have this conflict between competing interest groups.

“In the confusion of the feminist mind, they want their ‘reproductive freedom’ but then they say they don’t want them killing baby girls.”

 

Contact information:

The Crown Prosecution Service
Rose Court, 2 Southwark Bridge,
London, SE1 9HS
Tel: 020 3357 0000
CPS Press Office +(0) 20 3357 0906;
Out of Hours Pager + (0) 7699 781 926
Textphone (within the UK): 18001 020 7796 8000
For further contact info: ttp://www.cps.gov.uk/london/contact/contacting_cps_london/