Safe Surrender
Currently it is a criminal offence to abandon a child under the age of ten years old in a manner that would expose them to harm. People who do so can face up to 18 months in prison.
Abandoning a newborn in a public place puts them at risk for death and is a heinous criminal offence.
Canada has several legal and (relatively) safe ways to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
In the event an unplanned for baby is unwanted at birth, we have legal and safe surrender procedures. Its called adoption.
But this doesn’t address the underlying issues that cause people to throw their unwanted children away. If it did, there would be no abandoned babies, ever.
Safe Surrender laws will not address parental infantacide. People will still kill their babies dump their bodies in trash cans and worse. What Safe Surrender Laws will do is save the lives of baby’s like Baby Jane who aren’t so lucky to be found as quickly as she was.
What is Safe Surrender?
Various forms of safe surrender laws and practices have existed throughout Europe for centuries.
By the 1700’s the Catholic Church introduced the foundling home to combat the worsening problem of infant abandonment in Europe. A revolving cradle (the tour in France and rota in Italy) was set into the side of churches. Mothers or midwives would place a newborn in the cradle, ring a bell and run. By the mid nineteenth century over 1200 wheels were in operation in Italy and over 100,000 babies a year were surrendered in this way.
With the advent of birth control, social institutions such as foundling homes, orphanages, foster care and adoptions the spectacle of babies strewn in fields, ditches and down wells has abated dramatically.
However, there is still a need.
In lieu of complete national records, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Administration for Childrenand Families (2000) conducted a review of major newspapers for stories regarding unsafe infant abandonment and compared the data to similar findings collected in 1991.
According to this data, in 1998, 105 infants were abandoned in public areas throughout the U.S., an increase over the 65 infants abandoned in 1991.
In 1998 33 infants died as a result of abandonement, compared to 8 deaths in 1991.
Safe Surrender Definition as in use in California
From the point of view of Adoptive Participants
Programs
