Mark Steyn continues to explore the near-future implications of Western and non-Western demographics and birth rates. He asks two questions:

Is abortion in society’s interest?

Can a society become more Muslim in its demographic character without also becoming more Muslim in its political and civil character?

The two questions are directly related.

The reason Europe, Russia and Japan are doomed boils down to a big lack of babies. Abortion isn’t solely responsible for that but it’s certainly part of the problem. …

Seventeen European nations are now at what demographers call “lowest-low” fertility - 1.3 births per woman, the point at which you’re so far down the death spiral you can’t pull out.

There are severe implications for the West. See here.

Update: Reader Hazen D. emails a good point:

Steyn wants to talk about abortion as a demographic factor but he ignores the demographic elephant in the room, namely contraception. Clearly abortion plays a part in the decline in birthrates but I have to believe that its role is dwarfed by the effect of widespread use of contraceptives. However, due to the popularity of contraceptives, no one wants to raise that issue. However much we like being able to control the timing and number of our children (and I’m in that group too), I can’t shed the belief that the Vatican is right on contraceptives as well.

James Taranto at OpinionJournal framed abortion in political-impact terms in his essays about “the Roe effect.” And there’s no way to argue against Hazen’s observation that using contraceptives reduces the absolute number if babies born. Instead of hoping for three kids but settling for five - pretty common two generations ago - parents now plan on two and that’s that.