My mom has told me several times about stories of how tough life was for young, unmarried, pregnant girls in her neighborhood when she was growing up. She told me stories of poor young women who happened to get pregnant. She told me of how when these women walked down the streets of her neighborhood with their newborns, some men, women and children alike would stand out on their steps and taunt and harass these poor young girls, just because they had made a mistake in life. We hear how terrible it was before Roe vs. Wade and how women were faced with horrible "back alley" abortions, fraught with dangerous, disgusting and unsanitary conditions.

I believe Roe vs. Wade will be overturned within the next fifty years (hopefully sooner). When and if this occurs, we must realize the mistakes of the past and the mistakes of our predecessors. If Roe vs. Wade gets overturned, it will be inevitable that women will get pregnant outside of marriage. Again women will be walking down the streets of our country, unwed and with children. In light of this fact, we must look at ourselves and remember that it is our responsibility to these women, not to judge them, their children, or their choices. Who are we to judge another?

Men, in particular, have no right or reason to stick their noses into, or open their mouths when it comes to the actions of women in this area of their lives. I am not stating that men don't have a right to stop abortion or to sit in judgment in our courts of law; I am saying, without any reservation; that men do not have the right to judge women when it comes to her sexual nature. We as men should look to our women as a vast resource and the object of a brighter future, and should never sit on our front stairs or in our town halls, and sit in judgment or cast dispersions upon "our members" of the fairer sex. Compassion should be foremost in anyone’s mind when seeing an unwed mother walking with her newborn down the streets in our home towns.

The statements that I have made in the previous paragraph may seem extremely apparent and overstated to us here in the "enlightened" 21 ^st century, but believe you me, if Roe vs. Wade gets overturned, there will be plenty of these kinds of individuals crawling out of the "woodwork" to judge the next poor young women that walk down their streets. It would be good for us all to remember and hold onto the "liberal" ideals about humanity, while protecting the rights of the unborn. These women should be treated with the dignity that they deserve, for they are our daughters, our nieces, sisters and our even our future wives.

I have what I believe to be, at the very least, a partial solution to the problem of unwed mothers being left to fend for themselves. I purpose that once Roe vs. Wade gets overturned, we enact laws that protect the rights of the unwed mother. People at the current time, are falling over one another to adopt children. There is such a shortage of young babies in this country that people are paying huge amounts of dollars to acquire a child from overseas. Since there are so many couples out there at the present time dying to have children, but unable to do so, I propose that we set up adoption in a more personal way. We should require that the adoptive parents have more of a hand in the lives of the unwed mother and the unborn child.

To put it more simply: when an unmarried woman gets pregnant with an unwanted child, the government sets up a relationship with the mother and the adoptive parents, to take place in a personal and monetary fashion. If the adoptive parents are serious about adopting this child, they would be required to take responsibility for the young mother’s health needs, her financial needs, and her emotional needs. On top of her financial and healthcare needs being taken care of, the adoptive parents would also be responsible for any kind of litigation necessary. In other words, if some rude arrogant jerk were to start mocking her on the streets, the adoptive parents would be responsible to pay for any court fees necessary in light of these actions. Basically the adoptive parents would act temporarily as foster parents to the unwed mother.

Setting up this type of relationship between the unwed mother and the adoptive parents would be two fold. Not only would it give more protection to the unwed mother in so many ways, but it would protect the adoptive parents also from an unwed mother backing out of her decision to give up the child at the time of the birth. This would happen because, the unwed mother would be entering much earlier into a contract of adoption and would be required to make monetary restitution if she decided at any time before, during or after the pregnancy to break said contract.

The way I see it; if an unwed mother has given birth to an unwanted child, it should be the responsibility of all of us, to ensure a beneficial life for both mother and child. This doesn't mean a free ride for mothers that want to make a living out of having children, but a focus of our minds and hearts to relieve, as much as humanly possible, the suffering for women and children who are our future.