The abortion rate in the United Kingdom increased once again this past year, to 18.2 per 1,000 women.
With this in mind, and the recent attacks on Northern Ireland’s unborn under ‘Catholic’ Boris Johnson’s watch, this year’s March for Life UK has had an added urgency.
The numbers who attended Saturday’s event numbered in the thousands, as they marched through the streets of London. This year’s events also saw an earlier online prolife conference called ‘Lifestream’ which was designed to build momentum for the in person march.
One of the speakers at the event was a Catholic, Bishop Paul Swarbrick of Lancaster Diocese.
He asked:
We've abolished the death penalty for the guilty, why do we still have it for the innocent?
You can watch his talk at the link below.
There was also a poignant moment where the attendees knelt in prayer to ask God to help them end the slaughter of the British and Irish unborn.
Here is a summary of the UK abortion stats that were recently released:
The age standardised abortion rate for residents is 18.2 per 1,000 women, the highest rate since the Abortion Act was introduced.
The abortion rate has increased for women over 35 (from 9.7 to 10.6 per 1,000 between 2019 and 2020).
The abortion rate in 2020 was highest for women aged 21 (at 30.6 per 1,000 women)
81% of abortions in 2020 were for women whose marital status was given as single
51% were to women whose marital status was given as single with a partner
77% of women having abortions reported their ethnicity as White, 9% as Asian, 7% as Black, 4% as Mixed and 2% as Other.
98.1% of abortions (205,930) were performed under ground C (That the pregnancy has NOT exceeded its 24th week and that the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated, of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman) i.e. because they chose to get one and the doctor ticked the box, which makes a mockery of that phrase ‘trust doctors’
1.5% were carried out under ground E (That there is substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped)
There were 229 (7%) ground E abortions at 24 weeks and over
In 2020, 42% of women undergoing abortions had had one or more previous abortions. The proportion has increased steadily from 34% in 2010
Complications were reported in 247 out of 209,917 cases in 2020, a rate of 1 in every 850 abortions (1.2 per 1,000 abortions)
Women living in the most deprived areas are more than twice as likely to have abortions than women living in the least deprived areas. The rate in the most deprived decile is 26.8 per 1,000 women, compared to 12.1 per 1,000 women for women living in the least deprived areas. (Figure 14).
1,301 girls under 19 were getting at least their second abortion
20% of all foreign abortions were to women from the Irish Republic. 12% of these were repeat users of abortion.
Almost 5% came from Poland and Malta
The UK is now facing a new fight on the life front, with politicians mulling over the legalisation of Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide.
So far, the prolife movement there has generally not been able to replicate the successes of their American counterparts, who have scored major victories in Texas and other states in recent months. Texas and other prolife states like Alabama have one thing that makes it different from most of the UK, religiosity. As a result, the UK is probably one of the most difficult breeding grounds for a successful prolife movement but let us pray for their success nonetheless and work to support them as their level of abortions, 200,000 a year, is catastrophic and the coming battle over Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide could be too.