Sex-selective Abortion

Baroness Hussein-Ece Excerpts

Monday 7th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, I encourage anyone with an interest in this matter to read some of the case stories put together by Jeena International—they are really quite shocking. They are anecdotal, but they are very real for a small minority of women who lack self-worth. That is, tragically, part of some of the cultures in England and we must do everything we can to improve women’s self-worth. I think that, in the long run, that will be done by education, education, education.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)]

My Lords, if, as anecdotal evidence suggests, there are such terminations of female foetuses, surely that would be reflected in the overall population of girls being born. The figures I have seen show that women are, thankfully, still in the majority in this country.

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

The statistical evidence is absolutely clear and points to the fact that there is no widespread gender abortion happening in this country. One would expect a ratio of 105 to 100 boys to girls and it is actually 105.2 to 100 in England, Scotland and Wales, so it is exactly where we would expect it be. There is one exception, which is the third and fourth born of Nepalese women, but this has been looked at two or three times and it is just a random variation in the statistics that we use.