JOHN SMEATON, DIRECTOR OF SPUC: My letter in The Telegraph on sex-selective abortion

Thursday, 12 September 2013

My letter in The Telegraph on sex-selective abortion

Andrew Lansley, former health secretary

Yesterday The Telegraph published a letter from me about sex-selective abortion and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS)'s decision not to launch prosecutions. The letter as published was edited - see the Letters page for 11 September and scroll down 12 letters to "Abortion law". Here is the original version submitted for publication:

SIR - Andrew Lansley told Parliament yesterday that dealing with breaches of the abortion law was “the responsibility of the prosecuting authorities.” No doubt he meant the decision about whether to prosecute individual doctors, and he has a reasonable point.

The Telegraph reported (22 March 2012), http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9161735/One-in-five-abortion-clinics-breaks-law.html , that:

Mr Lansley warned that so-called abortion on demand was not acceptable. “It’s not what Parliament intended and it’s not what the law provides for,” he said. “My job is to enforce the law.”
At the time he was health secretary. And he did not enforce the law – abortion for any reason at all was, and continues to be, the order of the day at the department of health. The department enforces only protocols aimed at reducing (maternal) fatalities to an acceptable level. The requirements for a medical reason for any abortion were and are routinely disregarded.

So why are “wrong-sex” abortions controversial, if any other reason will do? It may be because the advocates of abortion on demand are maddened by women using freedom of choice to choose against their own kind.

John Smeaton
Chief executive, Society for the Protection of Unborn Children
London SE11

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About Me

I became involved in SPUC after graduating, when I established a branch in south London in 1974. I have worked full-time for SPUC for 42 years. I became chief executive of SPUC in the UK in 1996, having been general secretary since 1978. I was elected vice-president of International Right to Life Federation in 2005. At UN conferences in Cairo, Copenhagen, Beijing, Istanbul and Rome, I helped coordinate more than 150 pro-life/pro-family groups resulting in pro-life victories in Cairo, Istanbul and Rome. I was educated at Salesian College, London, before going to Oxford where I graduated in English Language and Literature. I qualified as a teacher, becoming head of English at a secondary school. I am married to Josephine. We have a grown-up family and we live in north London.