Hmm wouldn't have expected the Telegraph to throw out a hatchet job of this magnitude. Just for the sake of statistics, approximately 189,931 abortions were carried out in the UK in 2011, this figure would have been split across a 365 days in the year and 168 acute trusts. Approximately 3 instances of aborted waste being burned at each trust in the Country per day. Hardly the fleet of dump trucks the headline evokes but who needs context when you have hysteria.
Given the low number of foetuses required to heat a hospital I'm surprised we've not moved to an entirely foetus based energy system. In fact isn't the headline itself somewhat of a logical fallacy? Medical waste is incinerated, heat from incinerators is recycled to heat water, aborted foetuses are classed as medical waste, therefore the hospital is burning babies as fuel! Not quite.
As many have already stated the main issue here is whether the guidance has been followed, I would imagine somewhere within the paperwork there is a clause that states the hospital will burn all foetal waste from elective abortions without a directive to the contrary.
Whether or not this is an acceptable way to dispose of foetal waste, or whether abortion should be allowed in the first place is an entirely different debate.