The law on sex-selective abortion needs to change. It needs to be clearly legal

For better or worse, we already have 'abortion on demand' – so Parliament should end expensive legal confusion by making that crystal clear

Pro-choice supporters rally outside the Houses of Parliament Photo: AFP/GETTY IMAGES

By Matthew Scott

This Monday, Northern Ireland's exceptionally strict abortion laws were found to breach human rights law. And today, an attempt to tighten England's far more liberal laws has been also been dismissed in court.

Two High Court judges upheld the CPS' decision not to prosecute two doctors for sex-selective abortion, drawing criticism from activists that they were giving the green light to "abortion on demand".

The case arose out of a 2012 Telegraph investigation which revealed that two doctors were apparently willing to arrange for an eight-week-old foetus to be aborted simply because it was female. One of them, Dr Prabha Sivaraman, was recorded saying: “I don't ask questions. If you want a termination, you want a termination.”