Blog Post

Ban Baby Boxes, but Not Abortion?

Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS

In a move that is surely the height of hypocrisy, human rights activists in Europe who support abortion are calling upon governments to ban all anonymous drop-off points for unwanted babies, otherwise known as "baby boxes," because they avoid dealing with problems that lead to child abandonment.

The Associated Press is reporting that baby boxes are coming under fire by activists and the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child who want the practice stopped and are pushing this agenda in the European Parliament.

The boxes, which are usually attached to a hospital, allow mothers to drop off their babies and leave without penalty.

It is estimated that there are about 100 baby boxes in Germany with Poland and the Czech Republic each having more than 40.  Italy, Lithuania, Russia and Slovakia have about 10 each and there are two in Switzerland. Abandoning an infant anywhere is illegal in  Australia, Canada and Britain, but the U.S. has "safe haven" laws that allow parents to give up a child in a hospital or police department.

"They are a bad message for society," said Maria Herczog, a Hungarian child psychologist on the U.N. committee. "These boxes violate children's rights and also the rights of parents to get help from the state to raise their families. Instead of providing help and addressing some of the social problems and poverty behind these situations, we're telling people they can just leave their baby and run away."

Considering the fact that the U.N. is the world's largest promoter of abortion, one can only wonder why they think outlawing boxes that preserve a child's life is okay but  banning infanticide via abortion is not. If a baby box violates a child's rights, surely killing it does the same.

And why should we stop providing the boxes in order to deal more effectively with the reason why women are using them, but not stop abortion out of concern for why women feel they need to resort to the procedure?

Herczog goes on to say that it's not only mothers who are using the boxes to abandon their children.

"We have data to show that in some cases it's pimps, a male relative or someone who's exploiting the woman," she said.

If this is considered a good reason to ban the boxes, why isn't all the data showing that a large number of women are pressured into abortion by their partners, such as minor girls whose older boyfriends don't want to get caught, a good reason to ban abortion?

"It's paradoxical that it's OK for women to give up their babies by putting them in a box, but if they were to have them in a hospital and walk away, that's a crime," Herczog goes on to say.

But isn't it just as paradoxical to allow a doctor to commit infanticide via abortion, even on viable fetuses, with complete impunity?

The AP goes on to report that even though baby boxes were intended to cut down on the number of infants killed, statistics show that the practice has not improved those numbers. Contraception was also supposed to cut down on the number of abortions but never did, so why aren't governments considering banning the pill?

The furor over baby boxes in Europe is a textbook example of the kind of hypocrisy that permeates the "reproductive rights" debate. Blinded by a twisted ideology, the purveyors of abortion and contraception simply can't see that the very same arguments they use to promote the banning of baby boxes could also be applied to the need to ban abortion.

What kind of culture sees efforts to preserve life something that ought to be banned while allowing the ending of life in certain situations to be a "right"?

That's what we call the culture of death.

© All Rights Reserved, Living His Life Abundantly®/Women of Grace®  http://www.womenofgrace.com

 

Categories

Archives

2024

2024 Archives

2023
2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008