For years, it was dismissed as a ‘conspiracy theory’ or a statistical impossibility. But new data from the UK Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has finally brought a dark reality to light: sex-selective abortion is occurring in the UK.
New abortion data has confirmed official evidence of sex-selective abortions, estimating around 400 babies (predominantly of Indian ethnicity) were aborted between 2017 and 2021 purely because they were girls. To no surprise, the UK’s largest abortion provider, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), which in the last financial year performed over 110,000 abortions in the UK, claims that sex-selective abortions are not illegal, citing “there are instances” where abortion on the grounds of the sex of the unborn baby may be justified.
Ironically, this goes against the DHSC’s position that sex-selective abortion is illegal in England and Wales. This is further confirmed with the recent sex‑ratio monitoring and reporting, including revisions to the national abortion statistics series, which flag the very pattern you’d expect if sex selection were occurring in some communities.
For years, campaigners claimed there was “no evidence” of sex‑selective abortion in the UK. However, in 2012, The Daily Telegraph filmed doctors at private clinics agreeing to arrange abortions after being told the reason was the baby’s sex—and even discussing falsifying paperwork. The subsequent CPS decision not to prosecute, endorsed by the then‑DPP Keir Starmer, did not deny wrongdoing; it judged prosecution “not in the public interest.
A 2015 Department of Health report recorded testimonies from women coerced by partners or family into terminating female foetuses. One woman from Pakistan, ‘ C’, living in the UK, was knocked unconscious by her husband, who kicked and punched her after a scan showed she was expecting a daughter. He later divorced her. Another woman, ‘G’, terminated three consecutive pregnancies because scans revealed the foetuses were female.
These incidents perhaps prompted the routine monitoring of sex ratios at birth by the Department of Health to precisely detect sex-selection abortions. That assessment mapped the research, acknowledged testimonies of coercion, and committed to ongoing annual analysis. The point is simple: if sex‑selective abortion were unthinkable, the UK government would not have built an analytical framework to track it.
Recent data highlights the underlying trends. According to DHSC and national statistics, when sex ratios exceed 107 boys per 100 girls significantly, statisticians see this as a clear indicator of selection via abortion, embryo selection, or both. For Indian ethnicity births, the ratio rose to 113 from the third child onward, a pattern that cannot be explained by natural variation. This suggests an estimated shortfall of about 400 girls over 2017-2021.
Due to this statistical approach, the data is also likely to exclude sex-selective abortions occurring in specific communities that fail to meet the statistical threshold for reporting. These communities would include migrants from countries where sex-selective abortions occur, such as Pakistan and Bangladesh. As a result, the figures could be higher than currently known.
New Zealand is not immune to these pressures. Since the 2020 Abortion Legislation Act, abortion is available on request up to 20 weeks. At the same time, the rise of private NIPT (Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing) allows parents to determine a foetus’s sex as early as 10 weeks. This creates a wide, unmonitored window and an infrastructure in which ‘choice’ can easily mask ‘selection’.
Unlike the UK, which was compelled by public pressure to implement an analytical framework to monitor birth-ratio anomalies, New Zealand remains in a state of deliberate ignorance. We do not track the data; therefore, we can claim the problem doesn’t exist. But as the UK experience shows, sex-selective abortion only becomes visible when a government has the courage to address this detestable practice. New Zealand should take note.
The UK debate reveals a moral contradiction also relevant here: If ending a girl’s life simply because she’s a girl is morally unacceptable, on what principled basis is ending a boy’s life considered acceptable?
Once abortion is justified purely as a matter of personal choice, sex selection becomes another preference and routine healthcare. The ‘choice” model cannot logically condemn sex-based motives without recognising that motives matter. If we admit that aborting a girl because she is a girl is wrong, we are admitting that the motive matters. And if the motive matters, we acknowledge that the unborn child has inherent value that exists independently of the mother’s choice. Sex-selective abortion is not an isolated issue; it illustrates how the concept of limitless choice can result in discrimination against the most vulnerable in society and promote morally unacceptable practices like abortion.
