THE British Pregnancy Advisory Service is Britain's largest abortion agency. Proudly, it states its values as follows:

-Provide support and care for women seeking legal abortion.

-Advocate the need for safe legal abortion.

-Promote services that are accessible, effective, safe and confidential.

Yet, as the Sunday Mirror reveals today, it recommended an abortion clinic to a woman who said she was beyond the 24-week legal limit for termination in this country.

That limit is there for a reason. Beyond it, the foetus is fully developed and to deprive it of life is both dangerous and unacceptable.

So the extraordinary action by the BPAS is a comprehensive denial of its own values.

This was not providing support and care. It was not safe and it was not legal. It was not accessible in this country and although it may have been effective, the clinic in Barcelona considered it unsafe enough to insist on a signed agreement to an emergency hysterectomy if the abortion went wrong.

The BPAS insists its aims are to safeguard individual freedom and moral autonomy for those who choose abortions. But there is nothing moral about recommending clinics to desperate young women knowing they are illegal and high risk.

The Spanish clinic suggested by the BPAS was little more than a money-making machine. It is deeply shocking that Britain's largest abortion agency should recommend such a place to vulnerable women.

This has nothing to do with individual freedom for women. It is playing Russian Roulette with their lives.

What the BPAS did was a disgrace and undermined all the high- flown claims it makes for itself, not least that it treats all its clients with dignity and respect. Such appalling irresponsibility must not be tolerated and Health Secretary Dr John Reid cannot allow such a large organisation to disregard the law so blatantly.

The BPAS has done little more than act as a seedy tout for a tarted-up back street abortionist. It should be ashamed of itself.

Copyright 2005 MGN LTD
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.