Remember when “safe haven” do-gooders assured the world that “safe haven” legalized baby dumping, would be “rare?”
According to the June 30 Lodi News article, Mother safely, legally abandoned baby at Lodi Memorial that “rare” instance has reached epidemic proportion in California. Since the law went into effect in 2001, 348 newborns had been dumped anonymously on the state for their own good by parents who love their babies so much they’ll kill them if they can’t drop them on an ER counter with no shame, no blame, no name or molestation by pesky cops and courts.
This article and a TV report from KCRA-TV , Mom: I can’t afford to raise baby give us some random stats for the state:
San Joaquin County: 28
2001 statewide: 2
2009 statewide: 52
1st quarter 2010 statewide: 16
The LA Times reported on July 6 in Mother surrenders newborn son at ER in Glendale, that since 2002, 79 newborns have been “saved” in LA County. Deanne Tilton Durfee, executive director of the Los Angeles Inter-Agency Council, waxed poetic about the Glendale dump: The word needs to be out there that there is a recourse, there is a resource. What next? Baby Safe Haven Rap?
As for the Lodi mom. We know that she is 28 years old, gave birth at the hospital, is the mother of two other children, and “could not afford to keep her baby.” A KCRA-TV reporter covering the story calls that dump a “happy ending.” There is no mention if Lodi Memorial staff bothered to discuss ways to help the mother keep her family in tact. But then, this has never been about family preservation or even ethical child welfare and placement. It’s culling the herd of the poor, the uninformed, and the scared. Another eugenics experiment on people who don’t count.
In his 2003 essay, Dr. Pierce v Vichy, Ron Morgan, wrote, regarding France’s sister “safe haven” Accouchement sous X laws which have anonymized over 200,000 babies since 1940, “once this social welfare practice became institutionalized, it became normalized.”
348 babies proves that baby dumping is now a normal alternative to ethical child relinquishment. And that “safe haven” has moved from emergency child custody procedure to a cure for poverty.
Shocking and shameful but at least they’re not dead babies or would that be better than not having an identity?
Posting a link and tying in with a post I’m doing, hope that’s ok. x
Baby dumps are recycling bins…what is one’s trash is anothers treasure.
These dumps allow the industry to obtain “blank slates” without any investment. The baby pimps make a 100% profit on each dumpee and giggle all the way to the bank.
No, dead is never better, but these babies were never in danger of being killed. That is why Safe Havens is so bad. It does not save the infants of truly disturbed mothers who kill them anyhow.
What it does is offer a “quick fix” alternative to ethical surrender, or getting help to keep the baby. It relies on panic and fear in new mothers. It encourages unsafe deliveries with no medical care, and also encourages surrenders with no records for babies born in hospital. it is a bad law all around.
Von states that “at least they’re not dead.” The problem is, however, there hasn’t been a decrease in the number of babies who are killed/discarded. As a California resident who reads the papers and watches the news, I can attest to that.
As Maryanne stated, these “Safe Havened” children were not children who were in danger of being killed. Mothers who commit infanticide do not take the time to think, “Gee, maybe I should go over to an E.R. or Fire Station instead.” They aren’t stable enough to do so. Sadly, these mothers are still doing what they’ve always done. Save Havens have done nothing to prevent that.
The excuse that word of Safe Haven isn’t getting out to these mothers is bogus. The word is clearly getting out to various sectors of society, including the poor. The women who state they are surrendering because they cannot afford to raise their children prove that.
Safe Havens have created a quick and dirty alternative to traditional relinquishment that leaves the dumpee holding the empty cup at the end of it all. The women who surrender to Safe Havens can be offered help to keep their children. If they end up deciding to relinquish after that, they can be offered traditional relinquishment channels. Safe Havens don’t offer that. Instead, they happily take these children with no concern for many future issues.
Once again, women are being encouraged to seek a permanent solution for a fixable and, possible, temporary problem. This makes me sick.