Jeremy Hunt wrote to the attorney general, Dominic Grieve, asking for urgent clarification on the issue. Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images
Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, is to issue "urgent" abortion guidance to doctors after a decision by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) not to charge two doctors over claims that they offered to arrange terminations based on gender.
In a letter to GPs and hospitals, Dame Sally Davies, the chief medical officer, said: "The law is clear that termination of a pregnancy on the grounds of gender alone is illegal and the CPS decision does not alter that."
Anti-abortion campaigners point out, however, that the 1967 act does not expressly prohibit gender-specific abortions. It prohibits abortions unless two doctors agree that the health risks to the woman of continuing with the pregnancy outweigh those of termination.
Last month the director of public prosecutions set out the reasons why it would not be in the public interest to bring charges against two doctors, who were recorded agreeing to arrange terminations based on the sex of an unborn child. Both doctors remain under investigation by the General Medical Council (GMC) for pre-signing forms to allow abortions.
In response, Hunt wrote to the attorney general, Dominic Grieve, asking for urgent clarification on the issue. As a result, doctors will receive fresh guidelines making it clear that if there is "evidence that a certifying doctor has not formed an opinion in good faith, then the doctor performing the termination is not protected by the act and has potentially committed a criminal offence by terminating the pregnancy".
The department said it will now work with the GMC, the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to "provide urgent guidance to doctors".
There are fears among pro-choice campaigners that abortion laws are set to come under renewed assault. After the CPS decision, Ann Furedi of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service said: "In our experience, the only women requesting abortion on the basis of gender alone are undercover journalists."
Professor Wendy Savage, the country's first female consultant gynaecologist and a campaigner for women's healthcare rights, said: "The law is not clear that abortion on the grounds of gender is illegal. Of course, there will be very few cases where the risk to the woman's health will be averted by terminating a pregnancy where the fetus is a particular sex. But what makes abortion legal is the doctors' good faith opinion of where the balance of risk to the woman's health lies."
Savage warned that there were concerns that this story had been picked up by Hunt to "chip away" at a women's right to choose. She pointed out that Hunt has publicly called for the halving the legal time limit for women to have abortions, from 24 weeks to 12.
Although in some parts of the world sex selective abortion has led to significant distortion of the gender ratio at birth, Britain is not among them. A recent Department of Health analysis found that the UK gender ratio is 105.1 male births to 100 female ones and is well within the normal boundary.
Last night sources close to the health secretary said that the issue of gender-based abortions "crossed political lines with Labour and Conservatives politicians saying this was a problem. The guidance from the attorney general's office was that the guidelines need to be clearer. That is what the letter is seeking to do". The Department of Health said: "It is essential that all those involved in abortion provision understand the requirements of the Abortion Act to provide a safe, legal service for women."
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