Brandi Swindell, founder of the US anti-abortion group Stanton Healthcare, which set up the Belfast clinic

A Northern Irish pregnancy centre set up by US anti-abortion activists is falsely telling women that abortion causes breast cancer and infertility, an undercover investigation has found.

A counsellor at the Belfast clinic of Stanton Healthcare was secretly recorded telling an undercover reporter that she was “too beautiful for abortion” and a termination would make her breasts “fill with cancer”.

The false claims were condemned by a senior gynaecologist as “despicable” bullying of vulnerable women.

Abortion is illegal in Northern Ireland unless the mother’s life is at risk, unlike in the rest of the UK, where it is permitted if two doctors agree that continuing the pregnancy would be worse for a woman’s physical or mental health.

The referendum to repeal the Eight Amendment has