The proposal covers all European member states and has been put forward in a bid to prevent parents aborting female fetuses.
This is a practice which has reached ‘worrying proportions’ in some former Soviet states, claims the Council of Europe committee, which has passed the draft resolution.
The plans will now go to the council’s parliamentary assembly next month (October).
But, even if approved, the council does not have the power to impose a binding order on governments.
RCM general secretary Cathy Warwick said: ‘This is a complex issue but the predominant issue in the UK is that we expect women to be given information about their pregnancy.
‘And there would seem to be no ethical reasons to withhold this info, unless there was evidence that they were using it for fetal selection, other than for sex linked diseases, in which case it would be illegal under the framework for termination.’
The recommendation asks the European MPs to ‘consider recommending public hospitals to instruct doctors to withhold information about the sex of the fetus’.
It also puts forward the option of ‘ensuring the information is given in a positive way, irrespective of the sex’.
It comes after concern over sex selection in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Albania where the ratio is 112 boys for 100 girls, and Georgia, where the ratio is 111 boys for 100 girls.
Parenting groups have rallied against the proposal and Justine Roberts, founder of parenting site
Mumsnet, said it would be ‘ridiculous’ to impose the ban in countries where there was no problem.
In the UK, most maternity units are happy to tell expectant parents the gender of their unborn child, if they want to know.
But several NHS trusts in Hertfordshire and parts of London have policies which deny parents the option of knowing, due to concerns about prenatal sex selection, or on grounds of cost.
The DH will not comment on the resolution until it has been passed.
But a spokesman said the primary function of the scans is not to identify the sex, but to check for abnormalities, and date the fetus.
