It has been reported that many women are opting for abortion based upon sex selection. In Britain, it is illegal to abort a baby just because the baby is a boy or a girl. Deciding to terminate pregnancy because of gender is deemed to be illegal and can be punishable by law.

However, the worst part of the story is that women are being guided by the medical professional in going for an illegal abortion. But in few cases, women push doctors to abort their pregnancy without telling them the actual reasons behind doing so.

A study conducted in 2009, found that Indian origin women, living in Britain, were opting for abortion because they didn’t wish to have a girl baby. In some countries like India, gender discrimination is high. Boys are preferred and girls are considered as liabilities by some of the families.

The very wrong belief of a family leads to increased cases of female feticide. A researcher of the 2009’s study, Sylvie Dubuc, said, “Male preference in many Asian cultures results in discriminatory practices against females, including neglect and infanticide”.

Aborting pregnancy based on gender selection is similar to female feticide. During the study, it was revealed that since 1990, an increase of 4% in the illegal abortion or abortion on the basis of sex selection was witnessed.

In the UK, abortion is legal if doctor confirms that the pregnancy can have severe impact over the mental and physical health of the mothers. However, still the number of illegal abortion is on escalating scale. The government should take immediate action to tackle the growing issue. Investigations over the involvement of the medical professionals in promoting abortion have already been initiated.