Image: Unsplash – Photo by Jessica Rockowitz
By Antonia Tully
The absence of babies is, at last, troubling our thinkers and policy makers. Britain has an all-time low fertility rate of 1.44, well below the 2.1 needed for replacement level. Pro-lifers have always understood that the birth of a baby is a good thing. Now others are seeing just how beneficial new babies are. “If I had ten minutes with Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves,” writes Paul Morland in the Telegraph, “I would try to persuade them that the root of our ills is demographic.” So it seems that our problems with the economy, immigration and the NHS might just have a simple solution; more babies.
After 58 years of abortion on demand in Britain and 10 million preborn children killed, the fiscal and societal impact of abortion on a country which has turned its back on babies, is starting to bite. Yet SPUC is clear that attempts to reverse fertility decline will be futile unless we reverse abortion numbers.
Elephant in the room
Abortion is the elephant in the room in discussions on the global demographic crisis. No one wants to give serious consideration to the role of abortion and contraception in population decline. As Dr Greg Pike points out in his seminal paper, commissioned by SPUC, ‘How does abortion affect birth rates and demography?‘ abortion is “intimately tied to fertility.”
Around the world governments have attempted to respond to the problem with policies to promote childbearing. These have generally met with poor success. Dr Pike points to Japan and South Korea which have extensive pronatalist policies, yet their fertility rates refuse to go up.
Bucking the trend
Hungary seems to be bucking the trend. In 2023, it ranked third highest among EU countries, after Bulgaria and France, in total fertility rate. It has rejected immigration as the solution to falling birth rates, and claims that its strategy to encourage births is working. Their policy for those wanting children includes substantial tax breaks, interest free loans and extensive maternity leave. It seems that fewer women are giving birth, but those who do are having more children.
Under Hungary’s pro-child regime, marriage has increased, divorce has decreased and the number of abortions has fallen significantly. All, they say, without ‘new restrictive legislation.’ Commenting on Hungary’s demographic achievement, former pro-life Conservative MP Miriam Cates said: “We have a lot to learn from Hungary!” Indeed we do.
Abortions halved
Hungary’s abortion numbers have roughly halved between 2010 and 2023; from over 40,000 to approximately 21,000. That’s 21,000 preborn deaths too many. But a downward trend is to be welcomed and is a sign of hope. France, by contrast, has the highest number of abortions in Europe and the numbers continue to rise.
There are, of course, those who are howling that Hungary is curtailing reproductive rights, and that mandatory counselling sessions prior to abortion are ‘degrading’. But it’s worth looking at Hungary’s success in bringing abortion numbers down.
Pro-family
For over five decades, SPUC has promoted the humanity of the unborn baby and the beauty of motherhood. This is essential in shifting society to take a positive view of babies and families. SPUC is an inherently pro-family organisation and has repeatedly pointed to annual abortion figures which consistently show that marriage is the most protective environment for unborn babies.
Above all, SPUC has a vital message for our government: you cannot tackle the demographic crisis without tackling the rising abortion numbers in our country. Scrapping DIY abortion would be a good place to start.
