'Pregnant women have asked for terminations because they did not want their holidays spoilt' - Telegraph: More than one friend of mine in the profession has told me that pregnant women have asked for terminations because they did not want their holidays spoilt by pregnancy – and they duly signed the forms. I have signed only a few forms in the course of my career, a long time ago, and I am not sure what part the desire to avoid an unpleasant scene with the patient, understandable perhaps in a young man as I then was, played in my decision-making. In this connection, I cannot help but think of the notice in old-fashioned shops: please do not ask for credit as refusal often offends.
Of course, it is not difficult for someone to claim that the continuation of a pregnancy will harm her: all she has to do is threaten to take an overdose if it is not terminated. But if we take a latitudinarian view of what constitutes harm to mental health, there is no way of distinguishing between permissible and impermissible termination. A woman who wants a male child but not a female one can claim that a girl will harm her mental health while a boy will improve it. Anyone can ruin his own mental health if he wants to do so. Indeed, the very notion of mental health makes us ever more fragile.