Japan Has a Problem Posted by Shadi Hamid

Wow. This is surprising. I'm with the "conservative, national government" on this one:

Japan's first "baby hatch", where parents can drop off unwanted infants anonymously, opened Thursday despite opposition from the conservative national government. The baby hatch, modelled on a project in Germany, went into operation at a Roman Catholic hospital in the city of Kumamoto, some 900 kilometres (560 miles) southwest of Tokyo. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has urged Japan to return to "family values," opposed the idea but found no legal grounds to stop it.

It seems a bit weird that a Roman Catholic hospital would start something like this. Is the Pope okay with this?

Comments

[Greg Sanders]

From Salon:
"On the one hand, we hold parents -- well, frankly it's usually mothers -- responsible for the children they bring into the world. In most countries, abandoning your child is a crime. But since this often leads to desperate women to simply killing their babies or leaving them to die in Dumpsters, for centuries well meaning folk have been trying to save the babies by giving women legal, anonymous ways to give up their babies. The baby hatch is the most modern of these devices. It consists of an incubated bed behind a flap in the wall, outfitted with a sensor to alert a staff person that a baby has been place inside. Although hatches have never been used in the U.S. -- many states have instead adopted safe surrendered baby laws -- they've become increasingly popular in Europe and other parts of the world."

http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2006/11/09/hatch/index.html

I think the rationale for the Catholic Church is quite obvious. They prefer adoption to abortion. Obviously they also prefer the baby-hatch to leaving a baby in a dumpster or that sort of thing, but I think it's safe to assume that's a fairly universal sentiment.

Don't say this often, but I'm with Church. Better to give mothers safe options. If they have regrets, they can always return to the hospital afterwards (although I'm not sure what the exact implications for adoption law are).

[Jerry Mayer]

I also find myself with the Catholics on this. And it isn't at all odd within their world view. What is odd is Catholic schools that present female undergraduates with no child care if they become pregnant, presenting these women with the choice of dropping out and having their baby, or with having an abortion and staying in school. In the spirit of the baby hatch, they should provide access to childcare.
Also, Japan is DESPERATE for babies. The birth dearth there may be the worst in the world. They aren't having enough babies to maintain their 126 million population. And unlike other birth dearth countries, like Italy and Spain, Japan is not welcoming at all to immigrants. They have lots of guest workers, legal and illegal, but damn few new citizens.

[HeatherH]

This is a revival of a centuries-old Catholic practice. As the Salon piece above notes, some US states also have the secular equivalent -- places where newborns can be left no questions asked. They have found to be quite effective in lowering the rate of infanticides committed by terrified new parents (dads too, please note) who may not have fully recognized that they were pregnant or, in that marvellous adolescent way, just not dealt with the fact. (I have friends who adopted a wonderful baby boy through this route, by the way, so I'm all in favor of it.)

It's a place, by the way, where people who stereotype the Catholic Church as outrageously rigid get it a bit wrong. A good bit of Catholic practice (as opposed to dogma) is about humanely coping with the consequences of sin. EG the Vatican's decision to lower its voice when condoms are distributed as an anti-AIDS device in developing nations.

Now the most conservative Protestants are another story, actually making the Catholic church look kinda reasonable.

[Greg Sanders]

HeatherH: Noted. I should have said desperate parents. Glad to hear it worked out so well for your friend.

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Additionally,I get surprised at how the government here in Aust blames all the recent increases in violence in Japan...