Britain’s Labour Party is calling for a ban on expectant mothers being told the sex of their baby in early blood tests due to fears it may lead to girls being aborted.
Naz Shah, the party’s spokeswoman for women and equalities, said it was "absolutely wrong" that women were pressurised to have abortions if the baby was expected to be a girl.
Shah said some women were using the Non-Invasive Prenatal Test (NIPT) to determine the sex of their baby and then abort it based on the result.
The NIPT test involves taking a sample of blood from the mother during the early stages of pregnancy to look for the baby’s DNA, which is then analysed to gauge the risk of genetic conditions such as Down’s syndrome. However, the test can also determine the sex of the baby, leading to fears that women from some cultural communities will be pressurised into an abortion if the baby is female.
