11/15/2004

Abandon your baby

South Carolina's Department of Social Services has now made it easy for a mother to abandon her child. A mother has up to 30 days to decide whether they want their child or not. What does this do for society? This only makes it easy for women to try to raise a baby, decide they can't do it, and they just give there baby away.

Daniel's Law is what gives mothers this option. A parent cannot be prosecuted for abandoning their newborn if they take the baby to an employee at a hospital or an outpatient facility. The person leaving their child does not have to reveal their identity but will be asked to provide medical history of the parents. This will help the medical staff treat the baby if neccessary. The hospital will be providing medical care to the newborn while The Department of Social Services has custody of the baby.

Instead of the mother taking responsibility for her child and either putting her child up for adoption or taking care of it, this allows mothers to have no worry and just leave the baby at the hospital. It makes it even easier for a parent to ignore their responsibility. Is this something our society needs? An easier way to get rid of their child? Is 30 days too much?

4 comments:

Natalie said...

I have a hard time understanding how a mother could abandon her baby, however, the fact is it happens. Usually when this happens, the situation that the baby is currently in is not a good one. I believe that any program that allows a mother to make a hard choice and give her baby a better life it is a good one.

The statistics show that there are many more parents seeking a newborn to adopt than there are babies available. I have no doubt that the State will be able to find a loving, stable home.

skippy said...

You can't imagine a young scared mother afraid of telling her parents she has had a baby because her father will beat the shit out of her and kick her out of the house?

You can't imagine a young mother who husband has left her with no money and no support and she has no one to turn to for financial support and help?

You can't imagine an addicted mother unable to care for herself left alone her child?

Can't imagine a women with such bad post post partum depression she might harm herself or her child?

Better a hospital or fire house than a dumpster or submitting the child to dangerous and life threatening situations.

There really is gray area out there, unfortunately some people refuse to be compassionate and to become aware of people who exist who live lives outside of your own personal experience and comfort zone.

Anonymous said...

Overall, this concept can help women out when it comes to the pregnancy that was not meant to be. Women who are raped are ashamed and by being able to give their child up in a hospital instead of an adoption agency can help them. However, 30 days is way too long. It's like a sales receipt. You have 30 days to return this or else you cannot. This is a life. You cannot try it out and then decide that I do not want this child. You either can keep the child or you cannot. You should not be allowed 30 days to decide.

Dr. Tufte said...

-1 for spelling mistakes on Student_01's comment.

This one hit a nerve, didn't it? Note that it's related to the good samaritan post from later in this chapter.

This would be a really good example for the extensive form game section of Chapter 10. Remember how those work? You branch out the choices left to right, and then you work from right to left to figure out what will happen (that's called backward induction).

So, the mother has the choice to keep the child or abandon it. If she chooses to abandon it, then there are two new choices - to be open about it, or hide it.

There are actually two levels of decisions that a policy can influence. Daniel's law affects the choice between being open and hiding. As we do our backward induction, it also will influence the choice to abandon or not. But, now consider a policy that is meant to influence only the decision to abandon or not. Because of the backward induction, it won't affect the choice of being open or hidden.

So, the problem with a policy that focuses on getting the mother to keep the baby will run into the problem that it has no way to keep babies out of dumpsters when it fails. Alternatively, Daniel's law can handle that.

So, my money is that Daniel's law is a good way to address a heinous problem.