An abortion every 30 seconds

Madrid, July 6, 2006

The Family Policy Institute has presented a report to the European Parliament called ‘The evolution of the family in Europe, 2006’, which shows that an abortion is carried out every 30 seconds in the European Union. Spain is the country with the highest increase in the number of abortions over the past 10 years. This secular report also recognizes that abortion is much more damaging to women ‘than was previously thought.’ One out of six pregnancies in Europe ends in abortion. This means 208,000 in France, 195,000 in the UK, 133,000 in Italy, 128,000 in Germany, and almost 80,000 in Spain. These are the leading five countries in terms of abortion numbers, and account for 75% of the total. The number of abortions in Spain has increased by 75% in the last 10 years, the largest increase of any European country.

The report says Europe is becoming an ‘old’ continent, where one in six people are over 65. In the last 20 years, Europe has ‘lost’ more than 20 million under-14s, while the over-65s have increased by 17 million. Spain heads the list of nations in which the number of young people has most decreased - by 44%. Italy is the country with the lowest proportion of the population aged under 14, just 14%.

The population of the European Union increased by 14 million during the period 1994-2005, but more than 80% of this growth was due to immigration. Some EU countries are in a ‘critical’ state regarding their birth rates, especially Greece (1.29 births per 1,000 of the population), Spain (1.32) and Italy (1.34). Only Holland, Britain and France have a natural growth rate which is above that of immigration. Spanish women are, on average, the oldest when it comes to having children, with an average age of 30.84 at the time of having their first child. Lithuanians are the youngest, at 27.1 years old.

Source: Agencias, La Razón Editing: ACPress.net