Dropping off baby
May 11, 2007
The concept of a drop-off facility for unwanted infants may be new to Japan, but not elsewhere. "Baby-Klappe" hatches at hospitals are being pushed in ad campaigns in Germany in response to several documented infanticides. Here in the US, the emphasis has been on more general safe haven legislation, sparked in large part by a query made in 1998 by WPMI reporter Jodi Brooks to county District Attorney John M. Tyson, Jr. in Mobile, Alabama. A Stateline.org article by John Nagy relates this exchange between the two following the trial of a mother and daughter convicted of drowning the daughter's unwanted infant son: