Abortion statistics highlight Britain's roll of shame
BRITAIN has overtaken France (which has a larger population) and become the abortion capital of Europe.
The rate of abortions is still rising. In the past decade abortions among teenage girls has caused the rate to rise by nearly one third!
Half of all pregnancies among girls under the age of 18 end in abortion.
The Institute for Family Policies collated the figures from those collected by Eurostat, the European Union's statistical body.
The Institute has formally presented the figures to the European Parliament including them in a report on developments in family life.
The six highest European countries are:
Britain - 219,336
France - 209,699
Romania – 150,246
Italy – 126,562
Germany – 116,871
Spain – 112,138
The Institute made the observation that the annual number of abortions in the European Union is the same as the combined population of its 10 smallest member states.
These figures place Britain as fifth in the world for the number of abortions carried out coming behind Russia, USA, India and Japan.
Britain is also the country where most teenage girls have abortions.
The five highest European countries in abortions under the age of 20 are:
Britain – 48,150
France – 31,770
Romania – 17,272
Spain – 15,307
Germany – 14,989
These figures show the tragedy of the Government's Teenage Pregnancy Strategy. Conceptions are certainly not decreasing and abortions are most certainly increasing! This outcome is the complete opposite of what the strategy was to deliver. The Teenage Pregnancy Strategy has cost 300 million to date.
Teenagers who become pregnant are turning to abortion in increasing numbers. The strategy had set a goal of halving the 1998 conception rate in teenagers by 2010. That goal will not be met. It seems the Teenage Pregnancy Strategy, having already spent 300 million has really become an Abortion Strategy and the real price to our nation can never be estimated.
To kneel or not to kneel
David Cameron tells us that he does not get down on his knees in a crisis! I am sorry to learn this.
We all need wisdom, and certainly Mr Cameron's need is no less than yours or mine. He is old enough to know by now that as life progresses it is a commodity of which he will be continually in need of.
If we lack wisdom we are to ask for it and do so with a believing heart. Better for Mr Cameron and us all that he privately does get down on his knees than that he drags us all onto our knees if he becomes the next Prime Minister.
The plight of carers
The National Audit Office tells us that there are six million carers in the United Kingdom.
Last week a charter was handed in to 10 Downing Street, calling for an improvement in provision for carers. Currently the main carer's benefit is only 53.10 a week for a minimum of 35 hours' caring. That works out at 1.52 an hour! Of course not all of the six million carers on record with the Audit Office receive financial aid. The amount on offer is pitifully small.
Carer's UK, the organisation seeking to improve the status of carers, believes that three in every five people will become carers at some point in their lives.
Caring is something which usually goes on without wanting attention or fanfare. It falls within the considerable parameters of love. It is love in its most practical sense - doing. But, that does not mean we as a society allow the silence of lasting love to go unrewarded or left without the means to function.
Think on this
What is required of us? - to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God.
Australia's apology for 'lost childhoods'
For 47 years children, almost invariably from deprived backgrounds and already in some form of social or charitable care, were taken abroad mainly to Australia and Canada to provide "white stock" for these Commonwealth countries. Government records show that at least 150,000 children aged between three and 14 were sent away to "a better life".
We now know that "better life" involved the children remaining in institutions, being used as unpaid labour and facing years of abuse. The Child Migrants Programme has been brought into sharp focus this past week with the official apology of the Australian Prime Minister concerning it making headlines around the world. Our own Prime Minister is to do likewise in the near future, so we are told.
Eight years ago the Roman Catholic Church in Australia formally apologised for abuse, including rapes, whippings and slave labour that British children had suffered in its homes.
In 1951 Sir John Norris, the representative of the Governor of Tasmania made a speech to the annual general meeting of the Big Brother Migrant Movement in Hobart.
In that speech he said: "We must realise that in this vast country of ours we must populate or face the possibility of losing it to some of the millions of Asiatics that menace us. Reason tells us we must include in our scheme migrants from European countries, but as far as possible, we want migrants of British stock with whom we share a common culture and way of life."
Sir John Norris and his friends certainly gave a grand welcome to those he and his cohorts viewed as British stock and of common culture!
Today many of those sent away from Britain are still alive and it is estimated that there are 7,000 in Australia alone.
Is it too late to say sorry? No, it is not.
And if the apologies bring little comfort to the survivors, may they at the very least be an insurance policy against such exploits ever being permitted by a British Government again.
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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