A doctor who admitted to undercover reporters that an abortion he was offering amounted to “female infanticide” has been struck off Britain’s medical register for just three months.
Dr Palaniappan Rajmohan was recorded offering an abortion to a woman who said she wanted the procedure purely because the baby was a girl.
He was brought before the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service, who ruled that he lied about the reasons he carried out the termination.
The General Medical Council (GMC) dropped an investigation into a second doctor, Prabha Sivaraman, who told a woman: “I don’t ask questions. If you want a termination, you want a termination,” despite this being illegal under Britain’s Abortion Act.
Investigators for the Telegraph accompanied women to abortion clinics and found two cases where doctors offered to arrange terminations purely because the baby was female.
When one woman who was 12 weeks pregnant told Dr Rajmohan she did not want a girl, he asked her: “Is that the reason?” The woman admitted: “That’s not fair. It’s like female infanticide isn’t it?” and asked if Dr Rajmohan could put down a different reason on the form.
“That’s right, yeah, because it’s not a good reason any time. I’ll put too young for pregnancy, yeah?” he responded.
The Tribunal found that Dr Rajmohan agreed to record a false reason for a termination, and concluded: “Despite you apparently believing that the request for a termination of pregnancy was being based on the gender of the foetus, you immediately volunteered to Ms A the alternative reason ‘too young for pregnancy’ and sought her agreement to this reason.
“That false reason was so far away from what you knew to be true, that the panel concluded you must have realised at the time that your actions would be considered as dishonest by the ordinary standards of reasonable and honest members of the medical profession.”
The panel suspended the doctor for three months with immediate effect, with chairman Dr Paul Curtis commenting: “The panel is in no doubt that your actions have brought the medical profession into disrepute and would be considered deplorable by fellow practitioners. As such, the panel is satisfied that your conduct is sufficiently serious as to amount to misconduct.”
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