There are concerns some could choose to terminate pregnancy based on test result

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Prospective parents should be banned from using a blood test to determine the sex of their baby in the early stages of pregnancy, Labour has said.

Concerns have been raised that some people could choose to terminate the pregnancy because of a foetus’s sex.

The non-invasive prenatal test (NIPT) is used to detect Down’s syndrome and other genetic conditions and is being rolled out by the NHS as an additional part of its antenatal screening offer.

Those who take the test on the health service cannot use it to learn their baby’s sex, but they can pay for this privately, including via online services.

Naz Shah, the shadow women and equalities minister, said a preference for boys in some cultures could force expecting parents “to adopt methods such as NIPT to live up to expectations of family members”.

“NIPT screenings should be used for their intended purpose, to screen for serious conditions such as Down’s syndrome,” she told the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme.

“The government needs to look into this exploitative practice and enforce appropriate restrictions.”

On the NHS, prospective parents are offered a combined blood and ultrasound test in the first three months of pregnancy to check for abnormalities. Most can find out the sex of the foetus at an 18 to 20-week scan.

Using NIPT, this can be determined from nine to 10 weeks of pregnancy.

A report last year by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics found several websites offering baby gender tests for about £170.

It said that unless the test is used to diagnose a sex-related medical condition, there is no clinical need for it at an early stage.

The report warned that while there was limited evidence of sex-selective terminations taking place in the UK, there was a “real possibility that permitting NIPT for sex determination in the UK may be encouraging sex selection”.

It is illegal to abort a pregnancy because of a foetus’s sex alone, although there are some exemptions and the council said laws were not clear cut.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said it would continue to review the evidence.

“The prenatal test is never meant to be used for gender,” a spokesman told the BBC.