A newly released statistical report from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has revealed that nearly 30% of all pregnancies in England and Wales in 2022 ended in abortion, which is the highest rate ever recorded in those countries.
According to the ONS, 29.7% of known pregnancies resulted in a legal termination that year, continuing a trend of rising abortion rates since 2012. Abortion is the deliberate destruction of an unborn living baby, as compared to miscarriages or stillborn babies who were wanted and whose death was not on purpose.
This was covered in the UK Independent. Britain has 68 million people living there, and a birthrate of 1.44, the lowest rate on record, significantly below the replacement population rate of 2.1.
The birthrate in America is 1.66 as of 2022. NPR this week said that lower fertility was overall a net positive, since childbirth is painful and babies cost a lot of money.
The decline in fertility rates, and rise in the abortion rates, has been the most dramatic in Britain among the 20-24 and 25-29 age groups.
In raw numbers, 247,703 British pregnancies ended in abortion in 2022, an increase of 13% from the prior year. Separate data published by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), which uses a slightly broader set of clinical reporting metrics, placed the total number of abortions even higher, at 251,377. Both figures mark a historic peak since abortion was legalized in 1967 under the Abortion Act.
The politics of abortion have changed in recent years, as some in the west, such as Elon Musk, have begun to openly say that western countries need more babies and that higher birthrates should be a policy goal. In America, this has become known as the ‘natalist’ movement, a group of people seeking social and cultural change to promote the birth of more kids, and to encourage families to have more children.
In Britain, however, abortion culture is growing and abortion rates are higher than ever.
Abortion as a share of British pregnancy outcomes rose sharply in nearly every demographic, with a particularly stark rise among younger age groups. For girls under 16, the abortion rate was especially high: 61% of all known pregnancies in that cohort ended in termination. In women under 20, just over half of all pregnancies, 50.2%, ended in abortion. These rates have been rising steadily over the past decade and appear to be driven by a combination of socioeconomic pressures, shifting sexual behavior, and evolving access to abortion services.
Health officials and advocacy groups have pointed to a variety of contributing factors. A prominent theme in recent public health commentary is the role of cost-of-living pressures. Pro-abortion campaigners and some healthcare officials argue that economic hardship is making women feel unable to continue pregnancies, even if they might otherwise wish to. One spokesperson from a pro-abortion charity stated, “No woman should have to end a pregnancy purely because she cannot afford to have a child.”
Britain’s Labour Party is currently having to decide whether to further cut social services, or raise taxes, to cover the government’s budget.
Another critical change to abortion policy in recent years may have had an effect: the widespread adoption of at-home medical abortions during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The UK government made “telemedicine” abortions where patients receive pills in the mail and terminate the pregnancy at home, permanent in 2022. Over 60% of all abortions in England and Wales now occur via this method, representing a dramatic shift in how terminations are administered. Critics argue that the normalization of home abortions may be contributing to a higher overall rate by lowering both the logistical and psychological barriers, sometimes referred to in medicine as “informed consent,” that traditionally accompanied surgical or in-clinic procedures.
While some commentators view the increased availability of abortion as a mark of progress in bodily autonomy, others see the figures as a warning sign of deeper systemic failures. Pro-life advocates have pointed to the data as evidence that economic and cultural pressures are eroding a societal ethic of life. From this perspective, the high rate of abortions, particularly among teenagers and low-income women, reflects not freedom, but desperation. In their view, a truly supportive society would respond not by expanding abortion access but by creating stronger support structures for mothers, improving childcare access, and offering real alternatives such as adoption.
The political context surrounding abortion is also changing in Britain. Earlier this year, some Members of Parliament called for full decriminalization of abortion across the UK, a move that would remove all criminal penalties and potentially allow terminations later in pregnancy. At the same time, opponents of abortion argue that the current regulatory trend is dangerously permissive, and that further liberalization would only deepen what they view as a public health and moral crisis.
In America, deaths from legal abortion are often covered up and minimized by the media, abortion industry, and the government, so as to protect the abortion industry.
If the current birthrate continues in Britain, its population today of 68 million people, in 50 years, will have shrunk by half to 32 million.
The post Aborted Kingdom: 1 in 3 Pregnancies in UK Now End in Abortion appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
