Abortion largest cause of death in Europe, says report

There is a marital breakdown and an abortion in Europealmost every 30 seconds, according to a major newreport.

Marriage and birth rates are falling dramatically, pensioners nowoutnumber teenagers, and more and more people are living alone,says the Institute for family policy in a survey of life in the 27EU countries.

The report, ‘The evolution of the family in Europe in 2008’, wasdebated in parliament on Wednesday and describes the European birthrate as “critical”.

Urging national governments to set up a ministry for the family, itsays, “Europe is now an elderly continent. Almost one in every fivepregnancies ends in abortion. The marriage rate fell by 24 per centbetween 1980 and 2006. Two out of three households have nochildren, and nearly 28 per cent of households contain only oneperson.”

It says the average marriage lasts about 13 years and the number ofabortions in the EU every year is put at 1.2 million - equivalentto the population of Slovenia. That makes abortion the largestsingle cause of death in Europe.

It warns: “Europe is undergoing a demographic winter, and now,Europe is an elderly continent.”

It says almost one million (920,089) fewer babies were born in the27 EU countries last year than in 1980.

And figures show there were six million more over-65s thanunder-14s in Europe last year, compared with 36 million morechildren than pensioners in 1980.

The fact that the number of EU inhabitants has increased at all islargely due to immigration, the report continues, with 84 per centof population growth in 2000-2007 attributable to arrivals frombeyond EU borders.

Belgium, Luxembourg and Spain have the highest rate of maritalbreakdown: on average two out of three marriages end in divorce ineach country. And Germany, the UK, France and Spain between themaccount for nearly 60 per cent of all EU divorces.

The fall in marriages is described as “dramatic”, with a marriagerate reduction of 24 per cent between 1980 and 2006. Two out ofthree European households now have no children, the reportreveals.

European households are becoming more solitary, too. More than 54million Europeans live alone, with nearly 28 per cent of Europeanhouseholds having only one person. The average EU household now hasonly 2.4 occupants.

The answer to family decline, says the report, is more family-basedpolicies at national government and EU level: “Although there isgrowing awareness of the problems faced by families in the EU,there is no organisation which is in charge of family policy, nordoes it have a family observatory or a green paper on thefamily.”

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