Songjiang district prosecutors have signed off on the arrest of two women accused of operating an unlicensed abortion clinic, where they illegally provided pregnant women with tests to identify the sex of their babies, the prosecutor's office said Monday.

The two defendants, sisters surnamed Jin, ran the clinic out of an apartment in Xinqiao town until police arrested one of them on July 15, according to a press release from the Songjiang District People's Prosecutor's Office.

Police made the arrest after receiving a report about a botched abortion that left the patient with a punctured uterus, prosecutors said.

The victim, surnamed Feng, 20, visited the clinic earlier in July after she got pregnant with her second child. Feng, who already had a 3-year-old girl and wanted a boy, got tested to determine the sex of the fetus. When Feng found out it was another girl, she and her husband decided to have an abortion.

The couple paid the Jin sisters 1,000 yuan ($163) for an abortion on July 14. The elder Jin gave Feng four abortion pills. Four hours later, they began a surgical abortion with rudimentary medical instruments and no antiseptic.

The procedure left Feng in excruciating pain that grew more and more intolerable, prosecutors said. After an hour, Feng demanded that the sisters stop the procedure and send her to a hospital.

The sisters refused, giving the excuse that stopping in the middle of the procedure would cause life-threatening internal bleeding.

Eventually, Feng convinced the sisters to stop. She was taken to Shanghai First People's Hospital, where she was diagnosed with a punctured uterus and injuries to her rectum.

The injuries were considered serious.

The next day, Feng and her family reported the incident to police, who arrested the younger sister. The older sister turned herself in about a month later.

During their investigation, police found that neither sister was a licensed physician.

Global Times