The balance of our population, our human stock is threatened.
A recent article in Poverty, published by the Child Poverty Action Group, showed that a high and rising proportion of children are being born to mothers least fitted to bring children into the world and bring them up.
They are born to mothers who were first pregnant in adolescence in social classes 4 and 5.
Many of these girls are unmarried, many are deserted or divorced or soon will be.
Some are of low intelligence, most of low educational attainment. They are unlikely to be able to give children the stable emotional background, the consistent combination of love and firmness which are more important than riches.
They are producing problem children, the future unmarried mothers, delinquents, denizens of our borstals, sub-normal educational establishments, prisons, hostels for drifters.
Yet these mothers, the under 20s in many cases, single parents, from classes 4 and 5, are now producing a third of all births.
A high proportion of these births are a tragedy for the mother, the child and for us.
Sir Keith Joseph
1974.
