Police to Investigate Abortion of 28-Week-Old Baby.

Under pressure, police in Hertfordshire, England, are reluctantly opening a criminal investigation into the abortion of 28-week-old baby diagnosed with a bilateral cleft lip and palate, brought to light by Church of England curate Joanna Jepson.

In theory, under the 1967 Abortion Act, abortion is allowed "only" through the 24th week, unless there is a serious threat to the mother or if the baby would be born with "a serious handicap." The description of "serious handicap" is imprecise, which pro-lifers adamantly insist has left the door wide open to eugenic abortions for even the most trivial malformations.

Poring over abortion statistics, Rev. Jepson discovered that in December 2001, a 28-week-old baby had been aborted because the parents did not want a child with a cleft lip and palate. When the case first began to attract attention, Alexandra De Laszlo, deputy chief executive of the Cleft Lip and Palate Association, told the BBC that she did not know the particular case, but added, "I am quite surprised and concerned that a cleft lip was considered a major disability." De Laszlo said the operation to correct a cleft lip was "routine."

Since her discovery, Rev. Jepson, the curate at St. Michael's Church in Chester, has worked unflaggingly to have police in West Mercia, England, prosecute the abortionists responsible. In the process she has become, as one reporter described it, the "centre of a legal maelstrom."

Rev. Jepson was herself born with a congenital jaw defect corrected by surgery. She said the abortion was an "unlawful killing" because in most cases a cleft palate can be cured by surgery, according to LifeSite News.com.

Police initially stonewalled her request for a criminal investigation of the abortion. But last December Rev. Jepson won permission from the High Court to challenge in court the police's refusal to prosecute. She had first sought the investigation in September 2002.

More recently, adding intensity to an already heated discussion, the name of one of the two abortionists who agreed to the abortion, Michael Cohn, became public. He could be charged with willfully failing to meet the requirements of the Abortion Act, or, according to LifeSite News.com, "Police could charge him under the Offenses Against the Human Person Act with a possible penalty of up to life imprisonment."