MORE than 20 women have had abortions in advanced pregnancy because scans revealed that their unborn children had club feet.

Figures compiled by the Office for National Statistics show that the women had the terminations between 1996 and 2004, despite the condition being treatable with surgery or physiotherapy.

Another four terminations were carried out on babies with extra digits or webbed feet, defects that can also be corrected with straightforward surgery. The abortions took place more than 20 weeks into the pregnancies.

The revelations open a new chapter in the debate on “designer babies”. Some doctors and support groups fear that the UK’s unusual “serious handicap” provision, allowing terminations up to birth, is being manipulated. They point to an ever-widening definition of serious handicap to encompass treatable and less-severe conditions by those who do not want to risk an imperfect baby.

About one in every 1,000 children born in the UK suffers from club foot. It is twice as common in males as females and results in feet pointing inwards and downwards. It is occasionally linked to serious chromosomal defects, but additional prenatal tests can generally rule these out.

In most cases the cause is unknown, although there may be a genetic link and parents with one affected child stand a one in 30 chance of having a second child with club foot.

Naomi Davis, a paediatric surgeon at Manchester Children’s Hospital who specialises in correcting club feet, told The Sunday Times: “I think it’s reasonable to be totally shocked that abortion is being offered for this. I can only think it is a lack of information.”

Sue Banton, who founded the charity Steps for parents of children with foot disorders, said that one couple aborted their baby last year even after receiving advice from other families through her organisation. She said: “I know of lots of perfectly nice people with this condition, and you just can’t imagine them not being there.”

The charity Antenatal Results and Choices defended a woman’s right to abortion when defects are discovered. Jane Fisher, its director, said: “This is not part of a move towards designer babies. These are difficult and painful issues.”

Last March Joanna Jepson, a curate, lost her legal battle to secure the prosecution of two doctors who carried out the abortion of a 28-week-old foetus with a cleft palate, another treatable birth defect.

She argued that the condition was not a serious handicap, and that the 1967 Abortion Act was not compatible with the rights of disabled unborn babies in the later stages of pregnancy.

TERMINATIONS

• The number of abortions in England and Wales in 2004, the latest year for which figures are available, was 185,400, compared with 181,600 in 2003, a rise of 2.1 per cent

• The abortion rate is highest, at 31.9 per 1,000, for women in the 18-19 and 20-24 age groups

• 88 per cent of abortions are carried out at under 13 weeks gestation; 60 per cent are at under ten weeks

• 1,900 abortions (1 per cent) are because of the risk that the child would be born handicapped

• The under-18 rate fell to 17.8 per 1,000 girls compared with 18.2 in 2003

  Source: Department of Health, 2005

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