Britain’s largest and oldest pro-life lobbying and educational organisation has criticised the new reason put forward today for the non-prosecution of sex-selective abortion.
The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) www.spuc.org.uk was responding to the statement issued today by Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) for England & Wales https://www.cps.gov.uk/news/latest_news/dpp_abortion_case_fuller_reasons/
Paul Tully, SPUC’s general secretary, commented: “Keir Starmer, the DPP, has now contradicted the earlier announcement by Jenny Hopkins of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) which said that the decision not to prosecute was reached on the basis of the CPS public interest test https://www.cps.gov.uk/news/latest_news/cps_statement_abortion_related_case/
“Now the DPP has said that it is essentially for lack of evidence that they are not going to proceed with any prosecution:
‘again it is obvious from this analysis that even on this narrow basis the evidence is not strong and prospects of conviction would not be high.’
“The issue has clearly embarrassed the prosecuting authority. That embarrassment arises ultimately because the Department of Health under successive Secretaries of State not only refuses to ensure that doctors implement the grounds in the Abortion Act – providing abortions only when the grounds are met – but actually encourages doctors to offer abortion to any woman who says she wants one.”
