HUNDREDS of women have to travel miles out of Oxfordshire for an abortion because county NHS doctors will not carry out the procedure.

About four fifths of the 2,000 NHS terminations performed on Oxfordshire women every year are carried out in Reading or London by family planning organisation Marie Stopes, it has emerged.

The Oxfordshire Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust sub-contracts the majority of operations to Marie Stopes to prevent a potential backlog when doctors exercise their legal right not to perform term- inations.

It means only abortions for girls under 16 or women with health problems associated with pregnancy are carried out at Oxford's John Radcliffe and The Horton in Banbury. In all other cases, county women have to travel up to 75 miles to get to a clinic for their procedure, and be expected to return home the same day.

A Radcliffe Hospitals spokesman said new groups of doctors joined gynaecology for training every six months and could choose to refuse to carry out abortions for ethical reasons.

Doctors or nurses could refuse to be involved in abortions on moral, scientific or religious grounds, but did not have to state a reason. The spokesman said: "We do not know what the views of our junior doctors will be every six months."

The situation only became public after West Oxfordshire district councillor Dave King was told a father had travelled down to Ealing with his pregnant 15-year-old daughter.

He said: "If the mums are under 15 it cannot do them much good being sent out of the county to have an abortion, or for their parents who have to take them to London to have it carried out. It should happen locally.

"From what I can gather, the abortions are not being done in Oxfordshire because of the ethical beliefs of staff. I am a bit annoyed. It is the principle of it - people dictating what they are going to do work-wise. I feel if they work for the NHS they should be prepared to carry out these procedures."

The ORH spokesman said the scheme had been in place for several years but could not give a precise time.

The most recent statistics, for 2005, showed that 183 girls aged under 18 in Oxfordshire had abortions, out of 390 conceived that year.

Mark Bhagwandin, spokesman for the anti-abortion group Life, said: "I do understand the objections of doctors, and more coming into the field are going to raise this conscientious objection because the science proves beyond doubt that a baby in the womb is a human being.

"Women thinking about abortion are extremely confused and in crisis. If they have to travel a few hundred miles that's not going to help."

Other NHS trusts in the Thames Valley have similar procedures.

TERMINATIONS FACTFILE

  • A WOMAN can have an abortion up to the 24th week of pregnancy, although if there is a medical problem putting either her or her baby at risk there is no time limit.
  • A medical abortion can be done during the first nine weeks of a pregnancy. Two different drugs are used to cause a miscarriage, and the procedure takes a number of visits to the clinic.
  • An early surgical abortion can be done before 12 weeks of pregnancy in a five-minute procedure.
  • A later surgical abortion - done from 19 weeks onwards - is carried out in two stages. The patient must arrive at the clinic early for the first stage, before being given a general anaesthetic later in the day for the abortion to be completed.
  • Private abortions at a Marie Stopes clinic cost from £420, up to £1,600 for a surgical procedure.