Europe is facing extinction, alarms a study prepared by a Spanish nongovernmental organization. Fewer and fewer children are born every year as Europeans focus on their careers and personal benefits.
In the European Union of 27 countries, some 1.2 million abortions are carried out each year. It is approximately the entire population of the small Baltic republic of Estonia, which joined the organization in 2004. Every minute two human beings are annihilated in consulting rooms, a number that amounts to over 22,000 a week. France and Great Britain lead the statistics, but abortion is on the rise even in more conservative countries such as Portugal, where the law limits it to only rape and incest victims. Far from stopping abortion, the European Union plans to make it easily accessible in all the member states.
Europe seems to have lost its survival instinct. It is Central and Eastern European peoples that face the greatest risk of disappearing from the face of the continent, with the fertility rate way bellow 2.1 – the rate that guarantees the continuity of a nation. In Poland, for example, the rate oscillates between 1.20 and 1.30, what means that an average woman during her procreation phase gives birth to only one child. Although France and Ireland near the 2.0 rate, experts remind that most births are recorded in the areas populated by immigrants from Africa and Asia.
Abortion and low fertility rate is one problem; cultural trends are another. “If we do not return to our traditional values, such as family, we are facing a catastrophe,” Roberto de Mattei, a history professor of European University in Rome, told a Polish newspaper. The mentioned report confirms his fears, saying that one in three marriages in Europe ends in a divorce while in Sweden and Estonia more children are born in uncommitted couples than in marriages. The decrease in moral standards has been recorded since the 1968 generation came to power and rejected their parents’ values.
But Europe’s decline pales in comparison with Russia’s. It is estimated that as many as 700,000 Russians die each year, what means that by 2050 the country’s population may have fallen by one third of its present number. Although Russia’s population is still relatively young, it is decimated by alcoholism, drugs, and AIDS, which spreads quicker than in any other region in the world. Poverty constitutes another problem as only the privileged few can enjoy the fruits of the recent economic growth; the rest often live in conditions similar to ones during the Soviet Union.
Most European countries try to save themselves by admitting millions of immigrants into their borders every year. With more people retiring than being able to work, Africans and Asians seem to be the perfect solution to the continent’s rapidly aging population. But the open borders policy has a serious drawback. In France, the country of 62 million people, six millions are Muslims who admit that they feel more attached to their homelands in Northern Africa than to Europe. Their voice is already being heard as Paris formulates its foreign policy that struggles not to offend French Islamists; within years their opinion will grow even more important.
To avert the course, Europe must reinvent its philosophy. It should understand that its roots are in Judaic-Christian religion that favors family values and rejects individual hedonism. Professor de Mattei said in his interview that in order to survive, “the continent has to undergo a cultural and moral reform.”
