Writing in the Daily Mail, Lawson said that the UK Health Secretary, “should instruct those working within the National Health Service to give parents-to-be an up-to-date and balanced account of the lives of those with conditions such as Down’s and spina bifida, rather than terrify them with horror stories, when they are at their most vulnerable.”

He was responding to a television documentary broadcast last week by Channel 4, entitled Disability And Abortion: The Hardest Choice.

One participant recounted how when she was pregnant with her second son at the age of 34, scans indicated he had Down’s. “We told them that we didn’t want to talk about aborting him, but [the medics] kept saying it. We were asked on three occasions if we wanted to abort him, the last time a few days before he was born” she said.

“They were telling us he might not be able to walk or talk, that his life would be really, really, difficult. They made us feel that bringing a child like Aidan into the world would be a really bad thing.

“For a while it made me feel guilty [for having him].”