Safe-Haven Laws Fail to End Discarding of Babies

New York Times ^ | 13 January 2007 | Cara Buckley

[shrinkermd]

Their lives ended almost as soon as they began. And every time their tiny bodies were found, in Dumpsters, garbage cans or, in the case of a newborn girl in Queens last fall, on the conveyor belt of a recycling plant, dismay and bewilderment followed.

Six dead newborns were found abandoned in the New York City area in 2006, twice as many as in the preceding year, according to Timothy Jaccard, president of the A.M.T. Children of Hope Foundation on Long Island, which offers outreach to expectant mothers and buries discarded babies.

The figure does not include the baby born to Lucila Rojas, 25, last month. The police said that Ms. Rojas, who lives in the Bronx, confessed to smothering the 2-week-old boy on Dec. 31. According to the Queens district attorney’s office, she told the authorities that the infant was the result of a rape in her native Mexico, and that she threw his body into a garbage can. His body has not been found.

The killing and abandonment of newborns by their mothers seems incomprehensible to most people. New York is one of 47 states that allow parents to anonymously leave unwanted infants at sites like hospitals or firehouses without fear of prosecution under so-called safe-haven laws. Mr. Jaccard attributes the rise in abandonments to a lack of publicity about the law, which he helped draft in New York and promoted in other states.

[shrinkermd]

People are capable of great evil. FYI

[mtbopfuyn]

Six dead newborns were found abandoned in the New York City area in 2006, twice as many as in the preceding year

No, the rate hasn't changed. That's just the number "found" so no one knows how many babies were dumped.

Mr. Jaccard attributes the rise in abandonments to a lack of publicity about the law, which he helped draft in New York and promoted in other states.

No, these women know the law but they simply don't care. They show the law as much regard as their babies.

[silverleaf]

Seems to be the inevitable extension of an ethos where the fetus is not considered a person and society gives all life and death decision to the mother.

Having been dehumanized before birth makes these unwanted children vulnerable even after they emerge from the womb of the woman "empowered" to decide their fate. It's a slippery slope.

[WorkingClassFilth]

Yes, they are. They also reflect the ideology they have been fostered under. Our national thinking on issues of life is explicitly in favor of these kinds of acts - but only by sanctioned practitioners. These kids just cut to the chase.

[FES0844]

EXACTLY RIGHT.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Looks like the NY Times is scratching its head in puzzlement at this. Maybe if they would focus on the elephant in the room - lack of disregard for life thanks to the pro-abortion zealots.

[Calpernia]

ping

[sportutegrl]

“They don’t really think about it as a baby,” Professor Kaye said. “They see it as a foreign object; they want it out and done with and gone.”

Pro choice philosophy.

[Wuli]

"No, these women know the law but they simply don't care. They show the law as much regard as their babies."

Obviously, even before she 'discarded' her baby the law meant nothing - as she intentionally and illegally crossed the border to get here.

[Wilhelm Tell]

No, these women know the law but they simply don't care.

Such women are stupid brutes. Worse than animals. They throw the baby in the dumpster and go upstairs to the welfare-funded apartment and watch TV like nothing happened.

[RicocheT]

Laws are a poor substitute for a personal ethical system that one learns by growing up in a stable, loving, God-fearing family that is supported by a society that respects human life and one's right to better one's self through education and honest work. Lose those pillars of society and you can't do a quick fix by passing a law.

[XR7]

“They don’t really think about it as a baby,” Professor Kaye said. “They see it as a foreign object; they want it out and done with and gone.”

The National Socialist Workers Party held the same view toward untermenschen.

[heartwood]

Sixty years ago the cliche was the baby lovingly wrapped in a basket, with a tearstained note from its mother...I suppose there must have been babies abandoned with no care for their fate. But a plastic bag and a dumpster is more likely today than a basket or a box on the steps of a church.

Mrs VS

[nmh]

This should be a DUH ALRERT!

A firl KNOWS this is WRONG.

SHE is ASHAMED.

She wants to quickly take care of the "problem" and have NO ONE KNOW. Also she may NOT want anyone else to have HER baby - selfish - YES.

[nmh]

Liberals are stupid.

They really want to beleive that after having a baby - typically ALONE, bleeding, tired, scared - that the girl is going to hop in a cab with the newborn and drop it off somewhere - plus the girls don't WANT the baby - they hate it - probably the product of a rape.

[SauronOfMordor]

It has ALWAYS been the case that a woman who wanted to give up her baby could leave it on the doorstep of some family, or anonymously call the police from a payphone to pick it up from wherever. As long as the baby was taken into custody safely, nobody would have any interest in pursuing the mom

[Blue_Ridge_Mtn_Geek]

Ideas have consequences. Put professors of ethics in prestigious Ivy League schools who argue like Peter Singer,
http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer

and fund the eugenics inspired agenda of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a380249a34016.htm
http://www.citizenreviewonline.org/special_issues/population/the_negro_project.htm

and her intellectual heirs boosting $millions from the government, and you will get the logical results: treatment of human beings indistinguishable from treatment of other animals. All that will concern PP is that these women are cutting out the middle-man and doing the slaughter themselves, since it cuts into their lucrative revenue stream.

[ContraryMary]

Laws are a poor substitute for a personal ethical system that one learns by growing up in a stable, loving, God-fearing family that is supported by a society that respects human life and one's right to better one's self through education and honest work. Lose those pillars of society and you can't do a quick fix by passing a law.

That sums it up pretty well.

[cyn]

“They don’t really think about it as a baby,” Professor Kaye said. “They see it as a foreign object; they want it out and done with and gone.”

culture of death ping

[cyn]

thanks for posting this. It's too bad you can't post the entire article, which includes a photo of the Holy Rood Cemetary in Westbury, NY showing one of the gravesites for abandoned babies, who are given the last name "Hope".

I'm glad the NYT put this piece in.