In 2004, the Telegraph newspaper (UK) revealed that the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, the NHS-funded charity that is the country's largest abortion provider, was facilitating illegal late terminations of healthy pregnancies for hundreds of women without medical justification.
Extensive covert video and audio recordings exposed a horrific underground industry in which women carrying healthy fetuses beyond the 24-week legal cutoff and who want to end their pregnancies for "social" reasons, travel to an abortion clinic in Spain on the recommendation of BPAS. The organisation refers them there as a matter of "policy".
Staff at the Clinica Ginemedex in Barcelona, last week agreed to abort the completely healthy 26-week fetus of an undercover reporter, who was referred to them by BPAS, without even asking for a reason. Babies born at 26 weeks have a 75 per cent chance of survival. The reporter, who had never intended to go ahead, declined their offer at the last minute.
Staff confessed that they had destroyed fetuses up to 30 weeks old and admitted that they "play with the law so it's not completely legal".
Such abortions are illegal in Spain, with a potential prison sentence of up to three years for those carrying them out.