Unwanted newborns left in 'hatch'

TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- Two infants were left at Japan's only anonymous drop box for unwanted babies during the past week, bringing the toll to three in just over a month since it opened at a southern Japanese hospital, media reports say.

The baby drop-off, called "Stork's Cradle," was opened by the Catholic-run Jikei Hospital in the southern city of Kumamoto on May 10 to discourage abortions and the abandonment of children in unsafe public places. The same day, a boy believed to be three years old was found inside, marking the first arrival.

snip

The facility and its first find triggered a wave of outrage among political leaders, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe calling anonymous abandonment of a child "unacceptable."

A small hatch on the side of the hospital allows people to drop off babies into an incubator 24 hours a day. The infants will initially be cared for by the hospital and then put up for adoption.

The drop box was created after a series of high-profile cases in which newborn babies were left behind in parks and supermarkets, triggering a public outcry and government warnings against abandoning babies.

link:
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/06/17/japan.babies.ap/index.html

on note: I have to say I support the decision of the hospital. It's better the child is dropped off at a hospital than in some deserted park or construction site. Abe's 'grandstanding' and moral outrage are counter-productive IMO.

The alternative is horrendous.

We have this in Austin. You can drop your baby off at Fire Stations, ERS without being hunted down and charged with abandonment. It's a great thing and keeps scared 17 year olds from feeling helpless, hopeless and ending up tossing them in a dumpster.
Lee

Fire stations are safe zones

This is a good thing.
Lee

valid all over the State.

:hi:

dg

by hospitals in Europe in the nineteenth century. Good ideas seem to stick around.

I wish more people would raise their blood-birth offspring, but to discard human life so callously is horrible.

It keeps young scared girls from leaving them in dumpsters. As most of us above have said, a lot of cities in the US now have similar policies.
Lee

That's going a bit far

Says the drop box is an incubator. I'd like to believe it's a misprint, anyway.

"Two infants were left at Japan's only anonymous drop box for unwanted babies during the past week, bringing the toll to three in just over a month since it opened at a southern Japanese hospital, media reports say."

The AP writer of this story seems to have a problem with people being able to drop off unwanted babies at a safe place.

...

"Couples looking to start a family naturally want their own children. But amid the recent debate over whether to legalize surrogate births in Japan, one question has largely been overlooked: What about adoption?

Without a doubt, there are many children without parents who need loving families, but adoption of unrelated children is rare in Japan, partly because of doubts that placing them in an unfamiliar home environment is better than raising them in a public welfare facility.

Temporary foster care, in which families agree to care for a child for a few weeks or even several years without becoming the legal parents, is not common either."

Snip

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20061230f2.html

Given these cultural attitudes, I wonder what the future is for these "hatch babies"?

Has to be better than being raised by moms who are so indifferent or stressed out that they would abandon their babies. :shrug: