Germany Starts Baby-Drop-Box! Evidence of the Decline of Morality in Western Civilization!

Originally posted by thisguyrighthere
Moses was sent down the river because people were looking to kill him, no?
If all of these mothers somehow got death warrants signed for their babies then that comparison would work.

I am well aware of that, yet it doesn't affect my claim that our morals have been below acceptability from day dot. In that example an entire population of first born sons were slaughtered. Moses's mother put him in a basket and placed him in the Nile because she knew he wasn't safe with her which is not unlike the mindset of these mothers who also know their babies are not safe with them.

Baby Drop Boxes!

At first the thought of such a thing is absolutely repulsive. The idea that a woman, a mother, would deposit their, presumably new born, infant into a drop box (hospital safe zone or something akin to this) is simply foreign to my way of thinking. I want to say that such a woman is disgusting.

But then, the emotions kick off and the mind begins to function.

I think about the alternative. Isn't this better than to drop the child into a garbage dumpster, like so much refuse? Isn't leaving one's baby behind to be cared for by the state a better solution than to allow a child to freeze to death or to die miserably from dehydration, hunger or exposure? Isn't this so much better? Well, yes. It is preferable to save the life of an innocent child than to allow that same child to perish.

But then, the mind wanders. I can't help but think about why a mother would do such a thing. Why would a mother surrender her child to the state?

Yes, poverty is a concern. But, frankly, the state does provide welfare. Though being on the dole, so to speak, might not provide a great life, it can be adequate for survival.

Social norms are a concern. Because of religious pressures, cultural pressures and certainly familial pressures, I can understand that sometimes a young woman might try to keep a pregnancy hidden (though this would be difficult, I have heard of this sort of thing happening) and would even deliver the baby in secret. Again, leaving a baby behind to the state is, indeed, preferable.

What troubles me, ultimately, is the secret torment of these women. To have a child and to abandon it must be the most difficult thing that these women might ever do. Perhaps they are clouded by drugs or, worse, perhaps they are suffering from post partum depression. There are a myriad of reasons why such a thing might take place. But all I can really think of now is the incredible torment and pain that must fill the minds and lives of these women. And, unfortunately, simply the child behind to the state doesn't begin to help these women.

Sad but what is the alternative, dumping the babys in a river or something?

Bring back "no sex before marriage" to stop unwanted pregnancys

Lets start by saying that this is by far not the first of these "baby hatches" in Germany. They have been around since mid-90s.

Originally posted by thisguyrighthere
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Is it just not possible anymore for people to act with a little foresight and just not get knocked up or knock anybody up? Why is it simply ignored that maybe people should behave in a responsable fashion? Obviously cases of rape are excluded as at least one participant isnt exactly participating.

Just keep the damn thing in your pants and bull like baby drop-boxes wouldnt be a problem. WTF is so difficult about that?

The "difficulty" is that you as well as others in this thread try to argue from an outside view on this issue. First, the majority of these cases happen under circumstances where you just cant ask for common sense or reason by the parents.

First thing to keep in mind is that there ARE a lot of people with less than sufficient intelligence, let alone education. Those people just dont work like us lucky few, sitting in our comfy chairs and operating our "complicated" computers to speak about logic and reason. These people make their "mistakes" because they are simply incapable/uneducated/too immature to think around the next corner, to care for a simple cause-reaction calculation.

So basically the whole thing does NOT happen because the women want to "party the weekend" as the thread starter so insightfully put it, it happens because these women are not in the position to fully realize that "what they do today may affect tomorrow". It is a sad but simple fact that no society consists of able, mature and intelligent people alone. There is a reason why most of these cases either involve teenage and/or lower-class parents.

Another reason why this happens is that a birth is a highly emotional, even hormone-influenced thing. So the feelings a mother may have towards her child cannot be discussed about without having experienced them. Some women are not able to handle the emotional stresses a pregnancy and subsequent birth thrusts upon them. This is an abnormal, but nevertheless common event and can also be observed with animals that do not accept their young ones. Mammals are known to eat their placentas partly because they contain hormones to ease exactly that stress.

And on top of THAT there come the whole social problems which we as outsiders can at least try to understand: possible fears of the mothers to not being to able to sustain their child, or fears of failing at "managing" the whole parenthood thing. Fear of the child and the responsibility itself, fear of losing a social status etc... Fear and desperation are among the most basic human instincts.

There are a gazillion reasons why a mother might "dump" their child. And just because there is a warm box the mother can put the baby in instead of the next garbage can, NOT A SINGLE CHILD MORE will be born. You´re saying that these baby hatches will "incite" the parents to engage in even more unprotected sex - which is idiotic because that would mean that the potential parents were fully aware of the risk of pregnancy, of their possible incompetency to handle the child AND that they premeditate to drop the child off into these boxes more than nine months PRIOR to the actual birth.

Anyone who is capable of this complicated line of reasoning is also able to do something against the pregnancy at the start, or find a better solution than using the box in desperation.

[edit on 30/3/2007 by Lonestar24]