LIVERPOOL (OSV News) -- Nearly one in three conceptions in England and Wales end in abortion, newest government figures have revealed. Statistics on annual conceptions released July 9 by the Office for National Statistics showed that in 2022, 29.69% of all conceptions in England and Wales ended in abortion, up from 26.54% a year earlier.
The figures represent a huge increase in abortion within a decade, since in 2012 abortion ended 20.84% of conceptions -- a fifth of all pregnancies.
The revelations were met with sadness by Catholic leaders in England.
Archbishop John Sherrington of Liverpool, the city with one of the highest rate of abortion in the U.K., noted in a July 11 statement posted on the website of the bishops’ conference of England and Wales, that the figures revealed in some parts of the country claim “nearly half” of all conceptions ended in abortion. He said: “We need rapidly to re-establish a culture of life in which the unborn child is properly protected in legislation.”
Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth described the figures as “shocking and tragic.”
“Abortion cannot but deeply damage any mother who chooses to terminate her child,” the bishop said in a July 11 message texted to OSV News.
“With state-assisted suicide and euthanasia, a menacing culture of death is now growing under the surface that will inexorably depreciate the dignity and value afforded to the weakest members of society,” he said.
David Alton of Liverpool, a Catholic member of the House of Lords, Britain’s higher political chamber, said: “Abortion always ends a child’s life. That should never be reduced to just a question of convenience or choice.
“Those who said it would only ever be used in very rare circumstances have been silent as 10 million British babies have been aborted -- now one in three -- and have now given a green light to abortions up to full term,” he said in a July 11 email to OSV News.
Alton referred to the decision by members of the British Parliament who had voted overwhelmingly in favor of decriminalizing abortion up to birth June 17 -- a bill that headed to the House of Lords for further debate.
“This national tragedy has trampled on the foundational human right -- the right to life,” Alton continued. “It has ended lives which would have enriched our society; disfigured countless relationships; and distorted the country’s population balance and demographics.
“And this tragedy continues to play out without any serious public policy scrutiny and with those who question it being driven to the margins and ostracised as debate is suppressed and free speech closed down,” he added.
The Office for National Statistics’ figures show there were 834,260 conceptions for women resident in England and Wales in 2022, and 247,703 of these conceptions led to abortion.
The abortion rate was lowest among women aged 30-34, but still sharply increased from 13% of conceptions ending in abortion in 2012 to 20.53% in 2022 in that age range.
Abortions among those outside marriage or civil partnership increased from 29.4% in 2012 to 36% in 2022, and within marriage or civil partnership increased from 7.6% in 2012 to 11.1%.
The percentage of abortions was highest in Liverpool (40.3%), Brighton and Hove (40.3%) and Lambeth, a district in London (38.4%).
Catherine Robinson of the Right to Life charity said in a July 11 press release that the rise in abortions represented “a national tragedy.”
The Labour Party MP who introduced the amendment to decriminalize abortion, Tonia Antoniazzi, a Catholic, said she introduced the bill so women who performed late-term abortions at home with abortifacient pills would no longer be sent to jail.
Twelve other Catholic MPs voted for decriminalizing abortion up until birth following the June parliamentary debate.
Father Patrick Pullicino, a former neurologist at hospitals in London and Kent who now serves as a priest in Malta, said that English Catholics must pray regularly before the Blessed Sacrament if they wish for the abortion rate to drop.
In a July 11 email sent to OSV News, he said: “There appears to be a correlation between abortion rates and perpetual Eucharistic Adoration,” adding that “Our Lord longs for our presence before him in adoration and will respond in a very powerful way to even small amounts of deep faith repeated regularly, as it gives him the personal love that he craves from us.”
Father Pullicino added: “Those Catholics who show their faith in the Eucharist by committing to just one regular hour slot a week in their local adoration chapel is for Our Lord sufficient to respond in a powerful way.”
