Ireland's Gain: The Demographic Impact and Consequences for the Health of Women of the Abortion Laws in Ireland and Northern Ireland since 1968

A new report, released in Belfast and Dublin this week by the Pensions and Population Research Institute (PAPRI), compares outcomes for women in Ireland, with those of women in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and clearly shows that Irish women benefit significantly from Ireland's ban on abortion in a number of ways.  
The study, compiled by actuary Mr Patrick Carroll M.A., F.I.A. compared statistical data on abortions carried out on women resident in Ireland and Northern Ireland from 1968-2010 with the corresponding data for mainland Britain and discussed the implications for women's health. Significantly it also links Ireland's low abortion rate to low incidences of breast cancer and comparative good mental health among women when compared with those in England Scotland and Wales. The study also showed that Northern Ireland enjoys lower levels of these problems than the rest of the UK.
Mr Carroll in his presentation said that 

"Restrictive laws on abortion have enabled the birth rate in the Republic and Northern Ireland to remain much higher than the European average. Today the Irish birth rates are near to replacement level and Ireland benefits from a more youthful demographic profile with less dependence on immigration than other European countries."

He added that there were benefits for both women and children, explaining that: 

"it is because abortion rates are low among Irish women that Ireland shows a low incidence of maternal and infant conditions known to be abortion sequelae: still births, low weight births whether in singleton or multiple births, preterm or premature births, cerebral palsy and maternal deaths."

"Ireland also benefits from low incidence of breast cancer and comparatively good mental health among women and a low incidence of certain diseases of the immune system, to which low abortion rates have contributed. Liberalisation of abortion laws in Ireland can be expected to result in higher abortion rates and a corresponding deterioration in respect of these conditions affecting the health of women," 

The report is very timely because of the pressure being put on Ireland following the decision in the A,B and C case last December. It is hoped that this report will help to inform the "expert group" which the Irish Government is about to nominate in their consideration of the issue.  Mr Carroll's research is critical in the examination of the impact of any liberalization of abortion laws and their adverse impact on women's health in particular in regard to, premature birth rates, stillbirth rates, suicide rates, mental health, breast cancer rates, and immunological disorders 

Whilst it is impossible to give an accurate figure the report implies that the current population would be in the region of 100,000 lower if pro-abortion legislation had existed.  

Report Summary  
1. Restrictive laws on abortion have enabled the birth rate in the Republic and Northern
Ireland to remain much higher than the European average. Today the Irish birth rates are near
to replacement level and Ireland benefits from a more youthful demographic profile with less
dependence on immigration than other European countries.

2. Liberalisation of abortion laws in Ireland would result in a less youthful demographic
profile with a smaller native population as illustrated for Northern Ireland in the epoch since
1968 and for the Republic for future years.

3. Distinct traditional features of Irish demography are still apparent such as large families for
married couples in the Republic notwithstanding the late age of childbearing in Ireland and
Irish participation in the general trend to smaller families everywhere. The late age of women
at first giving birth in Ireland, in conjunction with higher Irish parity progression, explains a
high proportion of Irish abortions being nulliparous i.e. carried out on women who have had
no previous full term pregnancy.

4. Because most Irish abortions are nulliparous, and therefore especially damaging to the
health of women, it is because abortion rates are low among Irish women that Ireland shows a
low incidence of maternal and infant conditions known to be abortion sequelae: still births,
low weight births whether in singleton or multiple births, preterm or premature births,
cerebral palsy and maternal deaths.  Ireland also benefits from low incidence of breast cancer
and comparatively good mental health among women and a low incidence of certain diseases
of the immune system, to which  low abortion rates have contributed.  Liberalisation of
abortion laws in Ireland can be expected to result in higher abortion rates and a corresponding deterioration in respect of these conditions affecting the health of women.


 

Population Growth; debunking the myths

I Blogged earlier this month on the issue of global demographics and population growth, the announcement by the UN of the birth of baby 7 billion. see this link

The Population Research Institute (PRI) has produced a series of videos explaining in simple terms the implications of population growth and exposes the myths being spread by populations controllers, which sadly are believed by many.

I have linked to three of the PRI videos below. It should be noted that the information presented in these videos is based on solid scientific research.

Towards a new Civilisation of Love: Parents the Primary Educators and Protectors of their children.

I blogged previously on the Moscow Demographic Summit but I want to return to it to publicise a wonderful Paper given at the Summit by Dr Thomas Ward, founder and currently Vice-President of the National Association of Catholic Families (NACF). Dr Ward spoke at the conference as a representative of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) 

Towards a new Civilisation of Love: Parents the Primary Educators and Protectors of their children.

Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Civilisation of Love based on our families beckons us.

The Culture of Death is, of its nature, moribund. Its geopolitical epicentre is England where, increasingly, it is being resisted. 
Since 1967 our Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), the largest pro-life organisation in Europe has shown that, even in England, pro-life lobbying and legal interventions work.

·      SPUC prevented the extension of the 1967 Abortion Act to Northern Ireland

·      and has stopped Parliament from greatly extending it in England .

·      SPUC stopped the introduction of compulsory sex 'education' from the age of five…

·      SPUC led a successful campaign throughout the 47 nations of the Council of Europe to overturto then a report aimed at abolishing conscientious objection on abortion, euthanasia, IVF and contraception.

English liberalism

With Malthus's hostility to population growth, Darwin's 'survival of the fittest' and Galton's formulation of eugenics English liberalism [h]as been the seedbed of the eugenics movement.

Crucially, in 1930, without precedent in the history of Christianity the Church of England permitted the use of contraceptives at the discretion of married couples. The present Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury has stated that therefore the validity of non-procreative sex must be acknowledged and intimate same-sex relations could not be absolutely condemned.

When the BBC asked the current Catholic Archbishop of Westminster if the Catholic Church would not have to sanction 'gay unions' he replied that he did not know!

This unopposed moral relativism has consequences:

·      The premature sexualisation of children is widespread but is being increasingly opposed by parents.

·      40% of girls aged 15 or younger have sexual intercourse- the highest in Europe as is our teenage pregnancy and abortion rate.

·      45% of children are illegitimate

·      In spite of high quality studies which show that parental notification reduces under-age abortion government agencies which provide children under 16 with access to abortion and contraceptives without parental knowledge go into many schools, including Christian schools with the knowledge of Church authorities but opposed by parents.

·      The mean number of sexual partners nationally is 9

·      Marriages down by 50%.

·      Abortions 7 million since 1967 and legal up to birth

·      Since the first IVF child born in England 2,000,000 embryos have been destroyed

·      400,000 human beings, equal to the total populations of Cambridge, Oxford and York are annually destroyed by abortion and in the course of IVF.

·      We were the first to legalise the creation of and experimentation on human/animal hybrids.

·      Hospital staff who called patients who resist euthanasia 'coffin dodgers' have been denounced by an English Russian Orthodox priest.

·      In the Sexual Orientation Regulations a legal infrastructure has been laid down for a massive attack on the authentic Christian teaching on human sexuality, marriage and the family. Draconian penalties have removed the civil rights of millions of Christians e.g. Catholic adoption agencies have been legally suppressed because they refuse to sanction homosexual adoptions.

·      Family breakdown costs £20 billion per year only 14 billion less than defence.

Geopolitics:

London

·      Our Abortion Law was the model for the quarter of the world, our former Empire, which share Common Law.

·      The Headquarters of the International Planned Parenthood Federation and Marie Stopes International are in London.

·      Our Foreign Office promotes world-wide homosexual law reform which will inevitably penalize parental opposition to homosexual indoctrination of children in schools and silence many Churches.


Moscow
In1922 Lenin called a meeting of Marxist intellectuals to study why the Bolshevik Revolution had not spread to the West. Under Stalin they fled first to Frankfurt, the Frankfurt School and later to the US where they used its vast commercial, academic and media resources to spread their quiet worldwide revolution.

·      To impose the dictatorship of the proletariat they proposed that sexual instinct should be used as an instrument of destruction and that, intellectuals should be organised and used to make Western civilisation 'stink'.

·      Our culture had to be destroyed through the use of negative destructive criticism in all spheres of life.

·      Hope based on the belief in God was to be destroyed.

·      Our Judaeo-Christian legacy, our culture and our families including the right of Primary Educator had to be destroyed.

This cocktail of 'Cultural Marxism' and 'Eugenic liberalism, the Culture of Death is not only a culture of physical death but, more profoundly, through the eroticisation and moral corruption of children it is a culture of spiritual death.

We Christians, East and West must replace it with a civilisation of love.

The first step is to restore to parents their right to educate their children in conformity with their moral and religious convictions. Parents are the primary educators of their children.

This God given right is fundamental, inalienable and irreplaceable. It is founded upon their transmission of life to and their love for their child.

·      Homes where children learn to love by knowing that their parents love them are the schools of this Civilisation.

·      A mother who values her maternal vocation and her importance in the home nurtures the femininity and future motherhood in her daughters. She sets a clear, strong and attractive example of womanhood for her sons.

·      The dignified and masculine behaviour of fathers is a model for their sons. It inspires respect, admiration and security in their daughters.

·      Children naturally absorb sound attitudes on love, marriage and the true meaning of human sexuality from their parents.

·      Each child has his or her own rate of maturation.

·      Children should be individually taught the truth about sexuality by their parents who alone are in the position to know what, when and how.

·      Teaching modesty and chastity will help them to build their own beautiful families.

The artificial separation of the unitive and procreative, aspects of the conjugal act in contraception, in vitro-fertilisation and homosexual acts damages the deepest truth of sexual intercourse itself. This and the evil of abortion should be sensitively taught.

·      Pray together and encourage your children to intensify their Christian lives. Only then will they will have the necessary courage to give witness to their faith and morals.

·      Forbid any instruction on sexuality, which may damage your child's innocence.

·      Form associations of families.

·      Encourage your clergy to see the vital relationship between the family and the Church.

In conclusion.

There is no alternative to the Civilisation of Life.

It is possible to build this civilisation.

The Civilisation of Love is God's civilization

It is your civilisation.

Attempts to reverse Russia's declining population

The Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues (PNCI) reports that Russian Members of Parliament have teamed up with the Russian Orthodox Church to introduce legislation to dramatically reduce abortions. Russia, which according to a 2004 UN survey has one of the world's highest abortion rates at 53.7 per 100 women, also has one of the lowest birth rates.  See report

The proposal would ban free abortions at government clinics, make the morning-after pill only available with a prescription, and require spousal consent for married women and parental consent for adolescents seeking abortions. Yelena Mizulina, sponsor and chair of the State Duma Committee for Women's Affairs, Family and Children, added that the legislation would also institute a week-long waiting period for abortion and create "safe haven" centers for women to leave babies under six months. 

While the Russian Health Ministry's data, reaching 1.3 million abortions in 2009, does show a decline in the numbers of abortions, Mizulina points out that the Ministry does not include abortions at private clinics and from the morning-after pill and suggests the number is closer to 6 million abortions.   

The World Congress of Families has also made arrangements for a major conference on World population decline in Moscow at the end of this month. The first summit on the worldwide phenomenon of rapidly declining birthrates – The Moscow Demographic Summit: Family and The Future of Humankind -- will take place at the Russian State Social University, June 29-30, sponsored by the World Congress of Families. 

World Congress of Families Managing Director Larry Jacobs noted: 

“Russia is ground-zero for demographic winter. With an average birthrate of 2.1 children per woman needed just to replace current population, Russia’s is only 1.2. Little wonder Russia’s population has declined from 148.5 million in 1995 to 143 million today. Some demographers believe it could fall below 120 million by mid-point in this century. Adding to the tragedy, it’s estimated that there are 4 million abortions a year in Russia, and only 1.7 million live births.”