Health authorities in Sweden have ruled that gender-based abortion is not illegal according to the country's law and can be allowed to happen in Swedish hospitals, according to Swedish channel Sveriges Television.

Earlier this year Swedish website The Local reported on the case of a woman from Eskilstuna in the south of the country who had two abortions after discovering the gender of her baby.

The woman already had two daughters and requested an amniocentesis to check for any possibility of chromosome abnormalities. She also requested to know the gender of her unborn baby. After finding out that she was pregnant with another girl, she reportedly asked for an abortion six days later.

Doctors at the Mälaren Hospital were concerned with the request and and asked the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare to make guidelines on how to deal with such cases where they felt “pressured to examine the foetus’s gender” without a good medical reason.

The board has responded to the request saying that any woman who asks for an abortion upon discovering the sex of the child cannot be refused so long as it is not after the 18th week of pregnancy.

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