A leading NHS fertility doctor is making money by sending couples abroad to choose the sex of their unborn baby – a procedure that is illegal in Britain.
Gynaecologist Charles Kingsland, clinical director of Britain’s largest NHS fertility unit and a former inspector for the fertility watchdog, refers at least one woman a week to a clinic in Northern Cyprus to be implanted with a selected embryo.
Last night a leading cross-bench peer demanded an urgent inquiry into the ‘enormous moral issues’ after a Mail on Sunday investigation revealed that:
Mr Kingsland uses NHS premises and staff to organise for profit a medical procedure that is illegal in Britain.
Couples are paying up to £14,000 for the controversial service – more than four times the cost of standard private fertility treatment.
Mr Kingsland tells patients he must cover up his involvement by claiming to be ‘ignorant’ of their reasons for travelling to Cyprus.
Mr Kingsland told the Mail on Sunday: ‘At no point did I tell you we could offer you sex selection in the UK because that’s the case – we can’t. It’s illegal.
‘But I did make it clear I could point you in the right direction. If you do require that treatment then I... we can facilitate that but not in this country. We haven’t done anything wrong.’
