Friday, November 13, 2009

European Parliament Hears Warning of "Demographic Winter"

Zenit new agency reports that the Institue for Family Policies has presented an alarming report on Europe's future to the European Parliament. Here is a snippet:
"The data shows how the indicators of population, birthrate, marriages, family and home breakups have worsened over the last 28 years.

People who are older than 65 already outnumber by more than 6.5 million children under age 14, and every year fewer children are born.

Moreover, according to the IFP, there is "a collapse of marriages, with
increasingly fewer marriages and more broken ones -- one million divorces a year -- and with homes being emptied; two out of every three European homes have
no children.""

So-called private morality issues - sexual promiscuity, abortion, divorce etc. - turn out to have widespread social, political and economic implications:
"The president of the IFP affirmed that this "is causing evident effects, both in the economic as well as the social dimension."

He explained: "In the economic dimension, there is an increase in public spending because of the aging population, with an increase in investments dedicated to pensions and health expenses. Expenses that, added to the effects caused by the fall in public earnings due to the deficit of the birthrate can end by causing the reduction/elimination of social loans and, in the end, the bankruptcy of the welfare state.""

No matter how committed one is to the welfare state, one would nonetheless think that its looming bankruptcy would be a cause for concern.
"If the tendency is not halted, by 2050 the European population will have lost 27.3 million people, one out of every three persons will be older than 65 and only one out of every eight persons will be younger than 15, while the average age will be 46.7.

In regard to abortion, the IFP spoke of an "explosion" -- 28 million abortions in the EU since 1990, making it the first cause of mortality in Europe."

This is a picture of the culture of death in action. The most depressing thought that occurs to me reading this data is that the solution that will undoubtedly be brought forward is - you guessed it - more killing. Euthanasia for the lonely elderly who have no one to speak up for them will lengthen out the time it will take for the economy to crash and staving off the inevitable is apparently all the contemporary European mind is capable of engaging with any more.

Read it all here.

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