Abandoned babies still a problem

Just 30 years ago, one of every five unwed white mothers in America abandoned her infant. Today that figure has dropped to just 1 percent, largely because of contraception, abortion and a more positive appreciation of single motherhood.
By contrast, consistently throughout all these years, unmarried black mothers have kept their babies, either in their own care or that of their immediate or extended families.
Yet infant abandonment remains an issue.
In the United States, some 45 states have decriminalized infant abandonment, enacting "safe haven" laws to make it easier for a mother to give up her child anonymously. The aim of the new laws is to place helpless children immediately into care.
Anyone familiar with Victorian literature recalls that maids were raped in servants' quarters, seduced in pantries, given false promises of marriage, and became pregnant through ignorance and innocence. Before the Victorian era, it was actually common for authorities to hang unmarried women found with stillborn children.
Still hiding it
Contemporary sexual sophistication has limited the numbers of unwanted pregnancies, but nearly all of us know of unmarried women and girls who unwittingly become pregnant and attempt to disguise the fact as long as possible. Many years ago, my family harbored a pregnant teenager whose parents considered themselves shamed by her condition.
Of course, today it is not uncommon for glamorous celebrities to produce children out of wedlock, but those babies are usually cherished by at least one of their unmarried parents, who can afford to care for them. Unfortunately, that is still not the situation for poor unmarried women who find themselves pregnant and opposed to abortion.
On permanent display in the Nursing Museum in Paris is a doorway that once was part of a Catholic convent dating from the French Revolution. The door's most prominent feature is what appears to be a very large mailbox, but was designed for the anonymous delivery of infants by poor mothers into the care of the sisters.
Today in Germany there are some 60 havens that allow babies to be placed in protected "holes in the wall" containing a heated cot with an alarm that instantly summons a nearby volunteer to collect the child.
Scripps Howard News Service