'It was like auctioning an unborn child'

"You can't get away from the emotional aspect of performing an abortion. You can't argue from a strict, male, logical view that there is no difference between abortion at six weeks, 16 weeks or 26 weeks.

"My own view is that the foetus acquires rights as it matures and this reflects the way that the woman thinks. It begins with 'I've missed my period,' then 'I'm pregnant,' then 'I'm having a baby'. In some women it changes in hours, in others it takes days.

"Selective foetal reduction usually takes place when in vitro fertilisation (IVF) results in a number of embryos all implanting so we are talking about very, very early embryonic life. It is a different issue to termination at 16 weeks. By then, the woman has probably reached the 'I'm going to have a baby' stage.

"I have never had a woman say to me in 27 years of gynaecology that she could cope with one baby but not two. I once terminated a pregnancy at 27 weeks when it was triplets - this was before selective foeticide - and the question never arose with the woman and her husband.

I find her reported request was a strange one. If I was faced with it, I would want the woman to see a psychiatrist, or psychologist, who understands twins and bereavement, who could discuss the consequences of having one twin when she knows she's had the other one terminated.

"It is one thing to have terminated a pregnancy when it is a one-off thing. But when you have got twins and one is aborted, you have the live twin in front of you as a constant reminder. We don't have the evidence to tell whether there will be damage to the other twin, but there could be trauma.

"I see this case as part of the anti-abortionists' campaign to fight to abolish abortion. The money that was being offered is like auctioning off her unborn child.

"The interesting thing is the question of confidentiality. People should be able to go to hospital without the risk of people leaking sensitive information to the press. A woman should feel safe talking to her doctor.

"The anti-abortionists think about the foetus and don't think about the woman. It's a single issue for them and they think it justifies the tactics they use in this country, although it has not yet reached the levels in the United States.

"The anti-abortionists' energies would be better channelled into helping inform young people about how to make choices, whether or not to have sex, whether or not to get pregnant."

Wendy Savage is visiting professor in the Department of Social Science at Middlesex University, and spokeswoman for Doctors for a Woman's Choice on Abortion. She was talking to Glenda Cooper