British Abortion Business Didn’t Break the Law on Spain Abortions 
Email this article
Printer friendly page
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
September 21, 2005
London, England (LifeNews.com) — The British chief medical officer has released the details of an investigation concluding the largest British abortion business did not violate the law when it encouraged British women to travel to Spain for illegal abortions there.
Chief Medical Officer Liam Donaldson said the British Pregnancy Advice Service (BPAS) did not break British law but he urged the abortion business to be less willing to give out information to women about the Spanish abortions.
The investigation followed an expose in the Sunday Telegraph newspaper showing BPAS spending women to a Spain abortion business to have abortions at 26 weeks of pregnancy when the legal limit for abortions in Britain is 24 weeks.
Donaldson said BPAS didn’t break the law because it acted as a referral service rather than performing the abortions itself.
BPAS chief executive Ann Furedi defended the abortion business saying it had done nothing illegal. Furedi told the London Guardian newspaper that BPAS receives 250,000 calls annually from women and than the women over 24 weeks of pregnancy amount to no more than 100 of the calls.
The Guardian reports that BPAS will continue to give out information about the Spain abortion centers willing to perform the late-term abortions.
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.
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."
