The practice of aborting unborn babies on the basis of sex has long been considered a problem in areas of India and China, where boys are sometimes considered favourable for cultural or economic reasons.
There has been little official research on whether the practice is carried out in some of Britain’s immigrant communities.
Many hospitals have stopped giving parents information on the gender of their babies until late in the pregnancy.
However, blood tests that disclose the sex of a foetus are widely available on the internet or abroad.
In 2010 there were 189,574 terminations in England and Wales, an eight per cent increase in the past decade.
A Department of Health spokesman said: "Abortion based on sex selection is illegal and is morally wrong. UK birth ratios are within normal limits. However, we continue to closely monitor ratios and we are in the process of analysing preliminary data. If anyone has evidence of sex selection abortions being performed in specific cases, we will refer to the police to investigate.
"Identifying the gender of aborted foetuses raises serious ethical and clinical issues. We absolutely have no plans to introduce such a practice."
OK to slice 'n' dice them --- but identify their sex? Unacceptable, chaps. That would violate their privacy!
Wonderful to find somebody in the Dept. of Health with such a finely-developed sense of ethics.
/johnny
China and India are notorious for aborting little girls...both in the womb and beyond.
But wait a minute - aren’t they just a blob of tissue? How can they determine sex? The center does not hold.