Some members of the Joint Committee of the Lords and Commons, currently deliberating on the proposed Bill on Human Tissues and Embryos, have made a point of questioning witnesses on their position in relationship to pre-implantation social sex selection.

Robert Key MP, Baroness Hollis and Lord Robert Winston continue to refer to the matter to a degree verging on the obsessional. Winston is already famous for having endorsed social sex selection during a BBC series called ‘A Child Against All Odds’.

Let us hope that all these good folk have read today’s papers, with the tragic account of the discovery yet again in India of graves of aborted female babies, killed either in the womb or shortly after birth, victims of a particularly ruthless kind of social sex selection.

‘Certain questions do not need to be asked of anyone,’ said CORE today. ‘Social sex selection can never be justified, and certainly not if we are going to demonstrate justifiable solidarity with countries such as India and China, both of which are trying desperately to combat appalling levels of female infanticide.’