The latest figures suggest that pre-natal tests are to blame

Abortions for cleft palate, an easily-fixed facial deformity, have been rising in the United Kingdom, according to the latest official figures. In 2015, 11 were carried out. The comparable figure in 2012 was 4.

Campaigners point the finger at new pre-natal tests which allow doctors to inform pregnant women of the defect. MP Fiona Bruce, chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Pro-Life Group, said: “It is deeply disturbing if these figures reflect a worrying trend in society to disproportionately value the physically perfect and beautiful.”

Lord Alton, a crossbench peer, commented: “Aborting a baby with a cleft palate should be unconscionable. For the law to allow this up to birth should be unthinkable.”

A prominent Church of England curate, the Reverend Joanna Jepson, who was born with a jaw deformity, told the Daily Mail: “That this kind of discrimination is on the rise shows just how far we are from being the humane and tolerant society we claim to be.”

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