ANONYMOUS donations totalling more than £45,000 have been offered to the British woman who- intends to have one of the healthy twins she is carrying aborted because she cannot face the prospect of two babies.
A mystery couple from London made an offer of £25,000 through -the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, and this was followed by a pledge of £20,000 made by an anonymous businessman calling Christian radio station Premier.
Earlier, an anonymous donor had offered the woman £1 000 if she changed her mind.
Dr Jack Scarisbrick, of Life, said that he had spoken on the telephone to the anonymous donor, -a man. The man told him nobody at Queen Charlotte's Hospital in London, where the 28-year-old single woman is being treated, was willing to talk to him. Dr Scarisbrick said the donor was "angry that this child is being so ruthlessly destroyed".
An Italian pro-life organisation, Movement for Life, has also said that it will offer financial assistance to the woman, identified only as "Miss B" if she chooses not to have the abortion. A spokeswoman for the organisation, Ms Josephine Quintavalle, said the offer of £140 a week was not a bribe but part of Project Gemma, a sponsored scheme to help women who find themselves in difficult circumstances during their pregnancy.
Dr Scarisbrick urged Miss B to contact Life because the group was also prepared to provide her with funds from its own legacy of donations. Life, he said, would support her throughout her pregnancy and even provide her with somewhere to live and raise funds for her children's upkeep. "We would not want her to think we are trying to bribe her. We are trying to say: please don't do something which is horrible, which is liable to haunt you forever and which is going to cause all sorts of trauma and grief."
The organisation is now considering launching a national fund to help pregnant women who believe they cannot meet the financial cost of raising a child.
Dr Scarisbrick added that he felt the termination of a healthy foetus showed "how trigger-happy gynaecologists have become".
As the ethical debate continues -the editorial in yesterday's Daily Telegraph asked whether the law in the UK had been allowed to degenerate into "abortion on demand," and said Parliament should intervene.
Last night Sir David Steel, a Liberal Democrat MP, said the discussion of Miss B's case in the media had brought forth the "usual crop of statements from people opposed to all abortion" and who would then use their arguments to campaign to abolish legal abortion in Britain.
Sir David said such an "unusual and marginal case" should not be used in this way.
"This would merely return the country to the dark days of illegal abortion, which would apparently salve the conscience of the antiabortion organisations.
"As I have said many times, the law requires two doctors to act in good faith in sanctioning or refusing an abortion. Presumably they will do so in this case about which they know the details and have discussed with the parents while the rest of us know little."
His view was shared by the Family Planning Association which said it believed the issue of "selective termination" in the case of Miss B was a matter for the patient and her doctor.
Mr Paul Tully, of Britain's Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child (SPUC) said: "This is a simple case of abortion on demand and it is not what the 1990 Abortion Act had in mind.
"I would not condemn an individual woman who finds herself in this situation but I would say that the killing of a foetus is wrong and it is wrong in this situation. I would call on MPs to vote again on abortion legislation.
A spokesman for Queen Charlotte's Hospital said that the termination had not yet taken place.