One in four babies are aborted in England and Wales, according to a report from Right to Life UK.
The report said that last year, 23.8 percent of pregnancies were ended by abortions. This is up from 20.7 percent in 2012.
More than 657,000 babies were born alive last year in the two countries, and more than 200,000 babies were aborted.
Catherine Robinson, a spokeswoman for Right to Life UK, said the numbers showed a “national tragedy.”
She said, “It is a national tragedy that almost 1 in 4 pregnancies (excluding stillbirths and natural miscarriage) in England and Wales ended in abortion in 2018. This represents one of the highest proportions of abortions to live births since abortion was introduced in 1967 – the only year with a higher proportion was 2001 where 23.9% of all pregnancies ended in abortion.”
She continued, “Every one of these abortions represents a failure of our society to protect the lives of babies in the womb and a failure to offer full support to women with unplanned pregnancies.
“On the other hand, these figures show the dramatic difference that laws surrounding abortion make,” Robinson added.
According to the Department of Health and Social Care in the United Kingdom, there were 192,900 abortions in 2017.
Much of the increase comes from non-residents traveling to Wales and England for the procedure.
In Northern Ireland, only one in 20 pregnancies ended in abortions last year. Northern Ireland’s law allows abortions only in cases where the mother’s life is at risk.
The data showed that more than 1,000 women traveled from Northern Ireland to England or Wales for an abortion.
According to Real Clear Politics, Scotland saw a similar trend, and in 2018 the country saw a ten-year high for abortions. According to National Services Scotland’s national statistics publication, there were 13,286 terminations in 2018 – an increase of 843 from 2017. This is a rate of 12.9 abortions in every 1,000 women.
Photo courtesy: Edward Cisneros/Unsplash
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