Demographics is Destiny
In 2024 in the nation of Great Britain, there were 48 abortions for every 100 live births. This does not mean that 48% of babies were aborted, as some wrongly reported, but it does mean that about one-third of babies there are aborted. That is 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. Throughout this period, the total number of conceptions remained reasonably constant. Therefore, the number of live births in Britain has declined precipitously in the last few years.
According to Philip Pilkington, a macroeconomist and Senior Research Fellow at the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs, these statistics suggest “that 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. Britain is in a phase of self-euthanisation.”
Pilkington rejects the usual suspects for the significant increase in abortions in 2022, such as Covid or mail-order abortion pills. Rather, Britain saw serious levels of inflation, driven in part by spiking energy costs. Though the government responded with 58 billion pounds of household financial support and a tight labor market brought higher wages, the median household income still fell by 3%. Therefore, the best explanation for rising abortion rates is overall pessimism about the future.
Of course, Britain was in economic trouble before 2022. Boris Johnson, who led the Brexit movement and was Prime Minister from 2019 to 2022, was told to increase immigration to hold down wages or face economic collapse. This 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 comes from immigrants.
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 16-18 years after that to keep GDP stable in order to prop up debt/GDP ratios. So migration, already at record levels, will rise and rise.”
As a result, living standards in Britain could continue to fall, which could push abortion rates even higher. Pilkington adds, “Meanwhile, the new government is further liberalising abortion laws. It seems like they want to accelerate the self-euthanisation.”
Self-euthanasia is an apt description of what is happening to 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 clamping down on opposition to immigration and Christian street preaching, presumably to avoid provoking the Muslim community to violence.
It is no accident that formerly high-trust, safe communities in Great Britain now have a massive increase in crime, knife attacks, and 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 birthrate, and open borders are mitigated, it will be impossible to maintain the British GDP and social safety net.
So, pray for Britain, once the birthplace of world evangelization and now a birthplace of nothing. Pray that a movement of the Spirit will bring people to repentance. Pray that people would return to the truth about children, before it is too late.
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John Stonestreet is President of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, and radio host of BreakPoint, a daily national radio program providing thought-provoking commentaries on current events and life issues from a biblical worldview. John holds degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (IL) and Bryan College (TN), and is the co-author of Making Sense of Your World: A Biblical Worldview.
The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of CrosswalkHeadlines.
BreakPoint is a program of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. BreakPoint commentaries offer incisive content people can't find anywhere else; content that cuts through the fog of relativism and the news cycle with truth and compassion. Founded by Chuck Colson (1931 – 2012) in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today's news and trends. Today, you can get it in written and a variety of audio formats: on the web, the radio, or your favorite podcast app on the go.
