Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street. In 2024, in the nation of Great Britain, there were 48 abortions for every 100 live births.
Now, that does not mean that 48% of babies were aborted, as some wrongly reported, but it does mean that about one-third of babies in that nation last year were aborted, and that's far too many. For added historical context, abortion rates in Great Britain increased by one or two per 100 live births from 2016 to 2021, by nearly 10 in 2022, another two in 2023, and an additional five in 2024. And throughout that period, the total number of conceptions remained reasonably constant. Therefore, the number of live births in Britain has declined precipitously in the last decade. According to Philip Pilkington, a macroeconomist and senior research fellow at the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs, these statistics suggest, and I quote, British people are starting to aggressively curtail their own reproduction.
At the same time, the government is increasing immigration to prevent the country from bankruptcy.
So Britain is in a phase of self-euthanization. ⁇ Pilkington rejects the usual suspects for the significant increase in abortions in 2022, like COVID or male-order abortion pills. Instead, Britain saw serious levels of inflation driven in part by spiking energy costs. And though the government responded with about £58 billion of household financial support and a tight labor market raised wages higher, the median household income still fell by about 3%. Therefore, the best explanation for rising abortion rates is overall pessimism about the future.
Of course, Britain was in economic trouble far before 2022. Boris Johnson, who led the Brexit movement and was prime minister from 2019 to 2022, was told to increase immigration in order to hold down wages or face economic collapse. That began mass migration to Britain from outside the European Union, a trend reinforced by flat economic productivity. Today, almost all growth in employment in Britain is among immigrants. And the current British birth dearth will encourage even more immigration over the next several decades.
To quote Pilkington again, the babies not born post-2022 will need to be replaced with migrants 16 to 18 years after that to keep GDP stable in order to prop up debt and GDP ratios.
So migration already at record levels will rise and rise, end quote. And of course, that means living standards in Britain will continue likely to fall, which could push abortion rates even higher. Pilkington adds, meanwhile, the new government is further liberalizing abortion laws. It seems like they want to accelerate the self-euthanization. Self-euthanasia is an apt description of what is happening in Britain.
Demographics is, after all, destiny. There are many long-term implications of a decline in births, including implications for immigration. As noted in an earlier breakpoint, a significant percentage of the new immigrants come from Muslim cultures and hold British culture in contempt. British Imams openly state their desire to impose Sharia on Britain, including making non-Muslims second-class citizens. The British government goes out of its way to protect Muslims, while at the same time clamping down on opposition to immigration and Christian street preaching, presumably to avoid provoking the Muslim community to violence.
So it's no accident that in formerly high trust safe communities in Great Britain, there are now massive increases in crime, knife attack, sexual violence committed largely by Muslim immigrants who carry with them from their homelands misogynistic attitudes and contempt for non-Muslims. Unless economic factors, the falling birth rate and open borders are mitigated, it will be impossible to maintain the British GDP and social safety net. At the very least, we have to pray for Great Britain, once the birthplace of world evangelization and now a birthplace of, well, nothing. Pray that a movement of the Spirit will bring people to repentance. Pray that people would return to the truth about children, especially.
before it's too late. For the Colson Center. I'm John Stone Street with Break Point. Today's Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Glenn Sunshine.
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