Wes Streeting has been urged to close an abortion loophole that allows grooming gangs to cover up their abuse.
MPs have written to the Health Secretary urging him to change the law to require doctors to tell parents if their children under 16 seek abortions.
They have claimed that this allows grooming gangs to hide their abuse by getting victims to have abortions without their parents’ knowledge.
In a letter to Mr Streeting, Carla Lockhart, the DUP MP for Upper Bann, said some of the victims of grooming gangs, aged under 16, had been pressured into abortions with “little to no emotional support from those who care about them most”.
She said: “Without doubt, the legal status quo also made it far easier for the vile individuals behind these crimes to conceal the evil they have inflicted on these vulnerable girls.
“If there were a legal requirement for parental notification, then it is far more likely questions would have been asked potentially leading to the discovery of these heinous crimes at an earlier stage.”
Carla Lockhart is the DUP MP for Upper Bann – Oliver McVeigh/PA
Her plea has been backed by Sir Edward Leigh, who is Father of the House of Commons, and Miriam Cates, the former MP and co-chairman of the New Conservatives group.
The current law states that if a girl below the age of 16 has an abortion, there is no requirement for medical professionals to inform either the girl’s parents or the authorities.
This has been exploited by grooming gangs. In one case in Oxford, a 12-year-old girl who was repeatedly raped by a group of men was made to have a back-room abortion after falling pregnant. In a similar case in Rochdale, a 13-year-old had a hospital termination in an attempt to cover up the abuse.
‘Appalling failure’
Sir Edward, a former minister, said: “It is difficult to find words to fully capture the extent of the horror that was visited upon some of the most vulnerable people in our society as a result of the grooming gangs scandal.
“This has been an appalling failure and it is some relief that a spotlight is now being shone on it. It is also clear that the current abortion laws made it far easier to conceal these crimes. They should be revisited urgently to prevent further catastrophes on this scale.”
Ms Cates said: “As a child under 16 cannot legally consent to sex, there is a high chance that the pregnant girl has been abused. Parents absolutely must be informed if there’s a suspicion that their child is being abused. How can that child possibly be kept safe if they are not?”
Campaigners claimed that a change in the law to make it a legal requirement on doctors to notify parents would make it harder for some of the abuse carried out by the grooming gangs to be covered up.
They said a change in the law would bring the UK into line with other European countries such as Portugal, Italy and Spain, which all require parental notification.
Polling suggests that there would be public support for such a change. Seven in 10 (70 per cent) of parents said parental or guardian consent should be required for girls aged 15 or under to undergo an abortion, according to a ComRes poll of 2,000.
‘Enables abuse to go undetected’
Catherine Robinson, the spokesman for Right To Life UK, said: “It’s baffling that the current law includes no requirement for medical professionals to refer abortions of minors to parents and the authorities.
“Without doubt, this enables abuse to go undetected and would have made it easier for the perpetrators of the appalling crimes that have recently been in the spotlight, to conceal the evil they carried out so brazenly.”
The demands come as a new analysis, the first of its kind, revealed that grooming gangs are behind up to two child sexual abuse offences reported to police every day.
Data from all 43 forces in England and Wales show that there were 717 child sexual exploitation “grooming” crimes recorded by police in 2023 and 572 in the first nine months of 2024.