Cleft lip abortions '10 times as common as reported'

Abortions for other minor problems like club foot, that can often be rectified by surgery, are also being under-reported in the official statistics, they found.

Eurocat, which was set up to register congenital abnormalities across 23 countries, said 157 foetuses were aborted for cleft lip and palate in England and Wales between 2006 and 2010. However, the Department of Health records only 14 such abortions.

Over that five year period there were also 205 abortions for club foot, according to Eurocat. Again, official records put the figure at much lower.

Official figures show there only having been five such abortions in 2002, the last year in which club foot was recorded as a separate category.

The differences are due to the sources of data. Eurocat tracks what happens once a foetus has been identified with an abnormality, with its data coming from foetal medicine specialists, ultrasonographers and genetic testing laboratories.

The Department of Health’s figures come from the forms doctors have to fill in when carrying out abortions.

Campaigners said doctors who carried out abortions were failing to record the true reason for the termination, either to spare the women’s feelings or avoid controversy.

Joan Morris, national co-ordinator for Eurocat and professor of medical statistics at Queen Mary, University of London, said the group also found the number of babies aborted in 2010 for Down’s Syndrome was double that recorded officially - 886 compared to 482.

She told The Sunday Times: "Babies are aborted for Down's and they still don't put that on the abortion form, so if they can't do it for Down's, why would they put cleft lip?”

A Department of Health spokesman said: "We are aware that there is a potential discrepancy in figures and are looking into this in further detail."