Baby Box

Sometimes it’s call a baby hatch, sometimes a baby box, sometimes just a doorstep in a classic ring-and-run. Pastor Lee Jong-Rak in Korea has made a heated, alarmed pass-through chamber his mission in life and has attracted enough attention to spur talk of a Nobel nomination.

In Europe and India and the Far East, in Poland and South Africa, Russia and Japan, people who can’t bear the thought of unwanted babies being left to die provide safe haven for the babies and safe getaway for the birth parents. In some places, the law allows for handing the baby off in person and in others, some form of handoff chamber or at least an agreed location allows the birth parent anonymity.

I admit my great temptation to launch into a jeremiad on birth control, abortion and the plethora of related moral and political debates. But I won’t. I’m not talking here about a woman’s control over her own body and frankly, I don’t believe that as a male, I have standing to join that debate. I wish more men – particularly in congress – would similarly abstain.

Tonight I’m considering not a woman’s authority over her own body but rather, our collective embrace of those little bodies toward which surely, we all bear inescapable responsibility.

There is a debate ongoing about whether such benign abandonment is a good thing or a bad thing. I have trouble framing my participation in this discussion simply because I don’t have the data to understand this movement at a societal level.  And at a personal level, I am similarly bereft, if only because I’ve never walked in the proper moccasins to understand the decision.

I never had to question my ability to provide shelter, food and basic education. No baby was ever unwelcome in my extended family. I have never held my own wailing newborn while Jonesing for my next fix. And it matters to me not one whit what brings a mother to this crossroads. What matters – the only thing that matters – is the life in her arms. And at that crucial point, we should do everything we can to make her decision a safe one for her and for the baby.

Baby boxes may not be the way to go. But I think it’s better than most of the alternatives. Because whatever the sins or struggles of the parents, a breathing baby is good news. Always.

Mary is thirty feet away and the doors are open. But as easy as it would be to check with her before I write what follows, I just don’t need to.

However the laws or life affect you and regardless of your reason, if you just can’t figure it out, bring your baby to us and we’ll figure it out. We’re parents. It’s what we do.