I feel sad when I see very young women pregnant without a thought for their future.

by E, Keats
(Upper Hutt)

The other day, I happened to be in town. I saw a mother and daughter whom I knew. The girl would have been only about seventeen and she would have been about five months pregnant. The mother was unconcerned.

She was only really a baby and had never really got to leaving school, getting work and having fun and doing the things that young teenagers do
She is going to have to grow up fast and sometime or other has to look at getting some training and being able to work. She will have to earn enough to keep herself and her baby, as time goes on and her child gets older, there will be more expenses.
Young people have to realise that if they play around with sex and no one can really stop them, they have to be made aware of the economic, social, health and ethical risks that they are going to have to guard against. Unfortunately the urge to reproduce future human beings is very strong. If that were not so, then the human race would die out. Young people have to take responsibility for their actions. Having babies at an early age is going to compromise their futures and it is not fair to bring a child into an insecure situation.
I am though relieved that now no young girl has to be sent away from home to have to adopt her baby out, that hss gone but keeping a baby is a committment for at least 18 years at the least until they are old enough to look after themselves.
It is time that young men as well should have to take responsibility for their actions as well. In the past too many have been allowed to escape from that.