December 19, 2021
"Baby boxes have a history that goes back to 'foundling wheels'—revolving barrels that were installed in the sides of churches and convents during the Middle Ages..."
"... where people could leave their offspring without being seen. (In the twelfth century, Pope Innocent III mandated that the contraption be installed in Rome, after he became alarmed at the number of dead babies washing up in the Tiber River.) In recent years, they’ve made a comeback in many countries, notably in Germany, where they are called Babyklappen, or baby hatches... A mother who leaves her infant in the Babyklappe has eight weeks to return for the baby.... In the U.S., the first safe-haven law—also known as the 'Baby Moses' law—was passed in Texas, in 1999, in response to a spate of abandoned infants. By 2008, similar laws had been implemented in all fifty states... 'That’s important symbolically for pro-life groups, because they always love to emphasize how similar abortion is to infanticide,' [Mary Ziegler, a legal historian who studies abortion said]. 'Like, if you’re horrified by the idea of surrendering a newborn baby, or putting a baby in a box, why are you not horrified by killing a baby in the womb at fifteen weeks?' .... 'This isn’t an abortion debate,' [said Monica Kelsey, the founder of Safe Haven Baby Boxes]. 'The women that we deal with on a daily basis have already chosen life for their children.'... Kelsey... grew up in Ohio, raised by adoptive parents who... 'said my birth parents were young and in love, and they had to give me up because they couldn’t care for me.'... But at age thirty-seven, married and a mother herself, she managed to track down her biological mother, who revealed [that a]t the age of seventeen, Kelsey’s mother had been attacked and violently raped.... Two hours after Kelsey was born, her biological mother and grandmother abandoned her at a hospital.... 'I was actually whisked into this world by violence.'"
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23 comments:
I'm confused now. Is protecting foundlings supposed to be a good thing or bad thing because of national politics? Or is it now a bad thing because of national politics?
We aren't talking about volleyball here.
Chicago 1966 The RC Church ran a foundling home on the QT for decades right around the corner from the old 18th District Police /Station. I took two there before it closed after being blackmailed by the state and offered funds they could not refuse. And yes these were flag downs by family members/new mothers who could no longer care for the child.
"Special delivery!"
In this day and age it would be nice if mothers did not have to drop their infants off in a box anonymously. I would think that there would be some apprehension not knowing if there was someone there immediately to take care of them. Plus, it is helpful for the child to have a family medical history. My doctors all ask about my children's medical history and I cannot tell them anything, though I am thankful that their parents were able to place them in care anonymously, because without that they might have had to resort to more desperate measures. There are people in this world who are willing to take care of babies, would that they were given more opportunity.
If a woman gives up a baby for adoption, is she required to pay child support until her child is 18? Isn’t that in the best interest of the child? Does it vary from state to state?
Then there's the story of The Ideal Maternity Home and the Butterbox Babies.
The boxes should be encouraged. Not every woman doesn't want to be a parent to that child chooses abortion or adoption. The boxes are an alternative to women that don't want to abort and don't want to go through the process of putting the infant up for adoption.
Mary Ziegler and the rest of the radical feminists are sure bloody-minded, aren’t they? Among the Plains tribes the common practice was for women to do the torturing of captives. Or so I’ve read, from multiple sources. Makes sense when you see how badly modern women want to kill their own babies.
In Spain they are called tornos.
Each state is different, but most hospital maternity wards have special rooms for dropping off newborns. Counselors are available. The mother can choose to stay and get help. Even if she leaves the child, she can be assigned a social worker and work to get her life together to get the child returned to her. Sometimes both are transported to a shelter.
Most of these new moms are alone, young, and scared.
It's emergency work to save two lives. And of course there are multiple other ways to put up a child for adoption, WaSt Blogger. I know one group who identifies vulnerable girls and acts as their birth partners to get the babies the best start. And we all pay for universal free prenatal care, WIC, and Medicaid for all moms, including illegal ones.
So what is the specific whinge the New Yorker has about this? That prolifers "love" these programs because they humanize the newborn? Does Professor Ziegler bubble over with glee when abandoned newborns are found dead? Because she sure sounds crabby about saving their lives. Also, what makes her an expert in what pro-life women think? I know Ziegler's work. She knows nothing about the pro-life movement. She's thinks they're in it for the money. What money? It's an overwhelmingly local, volunteer, non-profit movement. Typical academic hack talking about things outside her expertise but saying the right things to get the bennies.
She's the one in it for the money.
When gov’t takes the place of Church… it’s the best we can hope for.
May God bless the people behind the boxes and the many children of God that they have saved. Also bless the mothers who chose life over death for their gift from God.
Certain Latino last names come from having a foundling in their past:
Iglesia or Iglesias for church and Cruz (cross). Blanco, which means blank, as in blank slate. Expósito/Expósita (from Latin exposĭtus,"exposed", meaning "abandoned child"), which has probably evolved into the common Esposita.
Think of all the Cruzes, Iglasiases and Espositos out there--all alive because an ancestor was left at a church, rather than being thrown into a river.
Compare the freedom of mothers to abandon financial responsibility to the lack of freedom for fathers. Let's cheer the former and jail the latter.
There was an episode of MASH (one of the later, depressing ones) where someone used a foundling wheel to leave a baby at a church.
Certainly, there shouldn't be a need these days. The adoption "market" is so tight that any unwanted American baby will find a family. I guess I can understand panicking, though, and wanting an immediate out, and obviously this is better than violence or neglect.
If we could only get the media complex to push condoms like they push masks.
Q: why do Americans need to pass laws for people to volunteer and express with rescue/safety procedures?
decently expatiated topic by New Yorker. refreshing to behold.
thanks Professora
Catholics and other religoius and charity groups run housing & counseling for pregnant women who would otherwise abort their infants. Here in Texas there is Mercy House, for one. In NY there is Good Counsel, Covenant House and others. Some abortion avoidance services get slammed for tricking pregnant women - seeking abortions - to come in and then bombard them with anti-abortion counseling/shaming. These housing services provide actual support for pregnant single women.
According to Wikipedia, the Roman Catholic Sisters of Charity established the New York Foundling Hospital in 1869. A white wicker cradle, placed just inside the front door, served as the instrument for anonymous surrender. My paternal grandmother may have been one of the beneficiaries of this, as she appears in a census of the residents at a late pre-teen age. This organization is also known for the Orphan Trains that brought some of its charges to adoptive homes in the West and Midwest.
Check out Boswell's book "Kindness of Strangers" Just plain abandoning children was very common in European history. It took many centuries before the Church thought up the idea of orphanages. Before then abandoned children could be picked up and used or abused at the whim of the person who grabbed them. Mostly abused.
This Person: wrong again. Sometimes it is both parents surrendering the child. And it doesn't matter if it's the father or mother who takes off if the other one raises the child: both mothers and fathers who abandon children raised by the other parent face identical legal consequences.
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