Support for young parents

This is such an uplifting article, which shows us that a young girl can face a great challenge and succeed in reaching her educational goals while raising her young child. It is crucial she is supported by her community and given adequate resources, such as school-site child care. Yes, it is possible to have a child and get an education, if our society starts recognizing the need for support services for parenting teens and college students. What if every high school student had the support, encouragement and services this young lady had? What if every college had on-site child care and services for students with young children? How many more success stories would we be hearing about?

What would things be like if we used the over $300 million each year to help young mothers and fathers bring up their babies or give them up for adoption? How much better would our communities be if we tried to get a life-affirming pregnancy help center into every county instead of an abortion center like the one proposed in Redwood City? Abortion is not the solution. Abortion exploits and hurts women and is a sign of our society's failure to provide adequate services to parenting teens and college students.

Everyone in this county proclaims they want to decrease abortion, including Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the country. Wouldn't a sure way to do it be to give pregnant women real choices and alternatives, in the form of support in raising their children or giving them up for adoption? Wouldn't that be a much better use of our taxes?

Danijela Brekalo

San Mateo