Tuesday, March 03, 2015

Indiana may allow baby boxes

A lot of people presume that new moms only want the best for their babies. So why do some of them abandon them in thw woods?

Indiana brings back a medieval custom of abandoning babies in baby boxes. This whole article is sick. There is no mention of dads.

AP reports:
On the outside, the metal box looks like an oversized bread container. But what's inside could save an abandoned newborn's life.

The box is actually a newborn incubator, or baby box, and it could be showing up soon at Indiana hospitals, fire stations, churches and selected nonprofits under legislation that would give mothers in crisis a way to surrender their children safely and anonymously.

Indiana could be the first state to allow use of the baby boxes on a broad scale to prevent dangerous abandonments of infants if the bill, which unanimously passed the House this week, clears the state Senate. Republican state Rep. Casey Cox and child-safety advocates say they're unaware of any other states that have considered the issue at the level Indiana has.

Cox says his bill is a natural progression of the "safe haven" laws that exist in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Those give parents a legal way to surrender newborns at hospitals, police stations and other facilities without fear of prosecution so long as the child hasn't been harmed.

Many children, however, never make it that far. Dawn Geras, president of the Save the Abandoned Babies Foundation in Chicago, said safe haven laws have resulted in more than 2,800 safe surrenders since 1999. But more than 1,400 other children have been found illegally abandoned, nearly two-thirds of whom died.

Cox said his proposal draws on a centuries-old concept to help "those children that are left in the woods, those children that are abandoned in dangerous places."

Baby boxes, known in some countries as baby hatches or angel cradles, originated in medieval times, when convents were equipped with revolving doors known as "foundling wheels." Unwanted infants were placed in compartments in the doors, which were then rotated to get the infant inside.

Hundreds of children have been surrendered in modern-day versions in place in Europe and Asia. The devices are even the subject of a new documentary titled "The Drop Box," which chronicles the efforts of a pastor in Seoul, South Korea, to address child abandonment. ...

Some baby hatches in China have been so overwhelmed by abandonments in recent years that local officials have restricted their use or closed them.

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has called for a ban on the boxes in Europe and has urged countries to provide family planning and other support to address the root causes of abandonments, according to spokeswoman Elizabeth Throssell. ...

The boxes also would include a silent alarm that mothers could activate themselves by pushing a button.

"We're giving her the power to do what's right," Kelsey said. "We're hoping that these girls know that once they push that button, their baby will be saved."
The article does mention "parents" surrendering a baby, but this is all about moms, not dads.

The mom and dad never jointly decide to abandon a baby. If they do not want the baby, they just give it up for adoption. Abandonment occurs when the mom wants to get rid of the baby without the dad's knowledge or approval.

The Democrat-feminist-Roe.v.Wade dogma is that a pregnant woman has a constitutional right to obtain an abortion, at her sole discretion, thru-out the 9 months pregnancy. And laws like the above give her the sole right to dispose of the baby after birth.

Reasonable people can disagree about these issues, and I am not sure what is best. I am just pointing out how extreme the current law is.

If the mom can disclaim responsibility for a baby, then the dad should be able to also. If the mom does not want the baby, the dad should have the option to take it before it is adopted. Why are we catering to the whims of moms who are likely baby-killers? Who ever thought that it was a good idea to give the moms 100% of the say over such matters, and the dads 0%? These baby boxes are an extreme form of indulging narcissistic crazy moms.

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