Every year their numbers increase. Report after report has been produced on the problem created by nearly 70,000 illegitimate births annually. And yet the unmarried mother is, today, as badly off as she has ever been. Much of the care of unmarried mothers and their children is left to voluntary organisations-in particular the National Council for the Unmarried Mother and her Child. At the end of last year the N.C.U.M.C. called a press conference-because it was going bankrupt. If it goes out of business society will have to decide what responsibility it owes to the unmarried women who each year have illegitimate babies. Is it right that such social responsibility should have to be left in the hands of voluntary organisations? Do we profess liberalism on the one hand and stigmatise the unmarried mother on the other? Now both Parliament and society may have to decide.