How Many Abortions Per Woman is Too Many? Five? Six? Seven?

Some pretty stunning abortion figures are coming out of Great Britain.

According to LifeNews.com, many women are getting multiple abortions, reinforcing the notion that it is being used as birth control--perhaps the only form of birth control by some women:

new figures show 1,300 women have had five abortions or more. The repeat abortion stats worry pro-life groups that some women are viewing abortion as a method of birth control.

The article breaks down the numbers a bit further, showing that some women have had even seven or more abortions:

The figures also show 950 women in England and Wales who have had four previous abortions at the time of their fifth. Another 200 had five abortions at the time of their sixth, 110 had six previous abortions at the time of the seventh, and 54 had seven or more previous abortions at the time they sought another.

Those figures, covering 2006, show the number of repeat abortions skyrocketing as 58,740 women had at least one abortion when seeking their second in 2004. That increased to 61,904 having had a previous abortion when requesting one in 2006.

The article says that a member of Parliament, Phil Willis, and his committee recently rejected lowering the threshold permitted for abortions from 24 to 20 weeks. Yet MP Willis has an even more radical idea.

You must remember that in Great Britain, they have a society which is far more socialized than most people have seriously dreamed of in the United States. They have far more government control and government intervention in their lives, they are taxed in every area of their lives, and they live under a government health care service.

Having said that, Willis proposes long-term sterilization as a solution.

He proposed long-term sterilization as an answer to the epidemic.

"The real challenge is what is the Government proposing to do to make sure that women presenting for multiple abortions are properly counseled and offered sterilization," he told the newspaper.

He says "offered" at this point, but how long will something like that remain voluntary in a government health care system? One where resources are already stretched very thin?

The UK has for years experienced long waiting lists for medical treatment, and is already performing a form of triage where certain people just don't get medical care. This is being done because, though they refuse to face reality, the facts are slapping them in the face: socialism and a government health care system are unsustainable over the long term.

How long until they start forcing sterilization on women who come in for multiple abortions?

They already have aggressive sex ed in Great Britain, but obviously education isn't enough. Without the teaching of moral absolutes, education is quickly and easily thrown off in the face of roaring passions and convenience.

I hate to see suffering anywhere around the world; I lived in England for three years, so I have a great sympathy for these people.

But perhaps what disturbs me even more is that so many in the United States are clamoring that we should be like Europe, that we should have a national health care service like England. Many also believe in the secularization of our culture, like those in Europe, where we abandon our traditional American belief in objective, transcendent values in favor of the expediency of the moment.

That means if we do end up following them down this dead-end path of suffering and broken dreams, we, too, will face some of these same hideous choices.

Benjamin Franklin said, "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."

As we see people unwilling to restrain themselves according to virtue, government becomes more powerful and freedoms slip away. Franklin is proven right, unfortunately, both in Great Britain and in the United States.