15 MAY 2004, Page 36

Go forth and multiply

From Andrew Nash Sir: Edward Collier (Letters, 8 May) asks how the country would be better off with the 6-10 million extra inhabitants which we have in fact aborted since 1967. The answer is that their tax and National Insurance contributions would have helped to pay for Mr Collier's pension and healthcare when he and the rest of us retire.

The pensions black hole and the inexorably rising health bill staring us in the face are the direct result of our disastrously low birthrate. As a society we are aborting and contracepting ourselves out of existence. Only a pro-life culture can sustain itself economically in the long run.

Andrew Nash

\Vantage, Oxfordshire