Spain Abortion Facility Performs Illegal Abortions on British Women

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Sep 11, 2005   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Spain Abortion Facility Performs Illegal Abortions on British Women Email this article
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
September 11, 2005

London, England (LifeNews.com) — An abortion business in Spain is coming under fire for offering financial incentives to British women and health clinics to come to Spain for what would be illegal late-term abortions in England.

The Mediterrània Mèdica abortion facility in Valencia, Spain offers British women discounts on the late-term abortions and offers to pay their travel expenses to fly there. The abortion center also offers financial kickbacks to British pregnancy advice hotlines to refer women there for abortions.

The abortion facility is getting around both British and Spanish law by performing 26-week and later abortions on women for approximately $2,000 and then claiming they are mentally handicapped.

British law prohibits abortions after 24 weeks into pregnancy unless the baby is severely handicapped or the mother’s life is in danger. British women in such circumstances can easily obtain an abortion in England through the national health care system.

In Spain, abortions after 22 weeks of pregnancy can only be performed if the mother’s physical or mental health is at risk.

Leonardo Llorente, one of the abortion practitioners at the Spanish center told an undercover reporter for the London Telegraph that, despite Spanish law, the center would never refuse to perform a late-term abortion on a woman after 26 weeks of pregnancy since "probably all women wanting to get an abortion at this stage will be psychologically affected."

"Always it can be proved that the patient at this moment had serious mental problems even though later on the patients can be completely normal," he told the Telegraph, justifying the late-term abortions.

Asked whether this meant that the woman could be given an abortion "whatever the situation", he answered: "Definitely."

Julia Millington, the political director of the ProLife Alliance, told the London paper that "It is completely abhorrent that Spanish clinics are touting all over the world for business. It is ghastly that they are seeking to profit from death."

Last year, the London newspaper revealed that the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, the largest abortion business in England, sent women with health babies to Spain for late-term abortions. The abortion business falsified paperwork to send the women to an abortion facility in Barcelona for abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy.

A British government investigation has yet to report its results.