What astonishing ignorance!
They were always there but hidden away.
Babies were often forcefully adopted, if not illegally aborted with risk of mother's death too.
Many died in "orphanages" and there have been some notorious cases uncovered over the years - literally so with discoveries of unmarked graves of unnamed children.
Others lived their lives pretending that their mothers were their elder sisters...and so on.
I've known many cases and some with happier endings where mothers and children have been re-united.
I recall helping to search for a local girl gone missing - her parents said maybe better to find her dead rather than pregnant. P.S. this was in the early 60s, not some long ago backwards era, and nothing to do with religion either - just some very awful normal middle class parents.
Attitudes were appalling but have changed dramatically for the better in my lifetime, thanks also to the welfare state.
You are are quite right in what you say about the past but you are conflating two eras with profound differences - pre-mid 1960s, and post 1960s.
In England and Wales, the percentage of children born 'out of wedlock' in 1939 was just 4.19%.
I know a bit about that - I was such a child born in June 1939. (More of that another time).
If you want to know just how wicked society was it's well worth reading the biography of 'The Last Foundling' - A little boy left behind, and the mother who wanted him back':
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Last-Foundling-little-behind-mother-ebook/dp/B00HPYMV0Q#customerReviews
Due to transient relationships during the war years, the proportion of births out of wedlock rose to 9.18% by 1945. It then fell back to nearer 5% until 1954, only reaching 8.8% in 1974. Until the mid 1960s, an unmarried mother who wanted to keep her child faced almost, insurmountable difficulties for the reasons Jacob outlined, not least the societal and family stigma which attached to it. We know know of the wickedness of so called orphanages, of girls who gave birth, wanted to keep their child, but weren't even allowed to hold it before it was whisked away to an uncertain future. Abortion was illegal and when 'the pill' was made available on the NHS in 1961, it was only for married mothers for 'family planning'.
Two things happened in 1967 which changed that:
Firstly: The National Health Service (Family Planning) Act of 1967 empowered Local Health Authorities (LHAs) to give birth control advice, regardless of marital status, using voluntary organisations such as the Family Planning Association if they wished. (The Pill is now taken by 3.5 million women in Britain between the ages of 16 and 49).
Secondly: The Abortion Act 1967, meant that unwanted pregnancies could be legally terminated.
There have been profound societal changes since then. Marriage has gone out of fashion, many who have children are in a relationship, but equally so, no stigma attaches to single parenthood, and it's true that some women have several children with different absentee fathers. Even if they wanted to, without family support they'd be unable to find childcare to enable them to work, and in all likelihood would earn much less than they are able to claim of benefits. Hence all the fuss about the two-child cap on Child Benefit, which - if the cap was lifted, might incentivise mothers in such circumstances to have more children born into adverse circumstances.
By 1984 the proportion of live births in England and Wales were to women who were not married or in a civil partnership had risen to 25%, by 2014 to 47.5%, and in 2022, 51.4% with 2021 being the first time on record that more babies were born to unmarried mothers than to those in a marriage or civil partnership. That doesn't mean they're single mothers - they may be n stable relationships, but simply not married. If they're single, they may have well paid jobs and childcare provision.
The image of teenage girls getting pregnant when at school, not taking exams, treating 16 not as the school leaving age, but the 'retirement age' and getting a council house (like Angela Rayner did then sold it for a profit of £48,500), is an outdated one. Under-18 conception rate has decreased considerably since 2007. Between 2007 and 2021, the under-18 conception rate in England and Wales decreased by 68%, from 42 per 1,000 women to 13 per 1,000 women, resulting in 13,131 under-18 conceptions in England and Wales in 2021. The number of abortions for under 18s also saw a rapid reduction, going from 21,494 in 2007 to 6,999 in 2021 (a 67% decrease).
Teenage Pregnancies:
https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/resource/teenage-pregnancy
In 2022, there were 605,479 live births in England and Wales, which was a 3.1% decrease from 2021. This was the lowest number of live births since 2002 and is in line with the long-term trend of decreasing live births that began before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Here are some other statistics on live births in England and Wales:
- Proportion of live births to non-UK-born women: In 2022, 30.3% of live births were to non-UK-born women, which is the highest proportion since records began.
- Total fertility rate: In 2021, the total fertility rate (TFR) for England and Wales was 1.55 children per woman, which was a decrease from 1.58 in 2020 and 1.65 in 2019.
Total conceptions and births:
Abortions 2021: 214,869. The highest since records began.(26% of total conceptions).
Births 2021: 605,469
Total: 820,348
https://www.gov.uk/government/stati...21/abortion-statistics-england-and-wales-2021
The most dangerous place for a child to be is in its mother's womb. 1 in 4 won't make it to the outside world. How lucky I was to have been conceived in 1939 - not 2019, or the chance are that I'd never have seen the light of day. All rather sad, given how freely available and effective contraception is, including the 'morning after' pill.
Quite enough for now.
