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, end quote.

Pilkington rejects the usual suspects for the significant increase in abortions in 2022, like COVID or mail-order abortion pills.

Instead, Britain saw serious levels of inflation driven in part by spiking energy cost.

And though the government responded with about 58 billion pounds 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.

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