The United Nations is increasingly concerned at the spread in Europe of "baby boxes" where infants can be secretly abandoned by parents, warning that the practice "contravenes the right of the child to be known and cared for by his or her parents", the Guardian has learned. It probably also contravenes their right to go on vacation with their parents, too. It does save them from being tossed into a convenient river...
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which reports on how well governments respect and protect children's human rights, is alarmed at the prevalence of the hatches -- usually outside a hospital -- which allow unwanted newborns to be left in boxes with an alarm or bell to summon a carer. I guess they'd rather the kids showed up dead somewhere for whatever reasons.
The committee, a group of 18 international human rights experts based in Geneva, says that while "foundling wheels" and baby hatches had disappeared from Europe in the last century, almost 200 have been installed across the continent in the past decade in nations as diverse as Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Czech Republic and Latvia. Since 2000, more than 400 children have been abandoned in the hatches, with faith groups and right-wing politicians spearheading the revival in the controversial practice. I saw my first one here in the good ol' U.S. of A. here a couple of weeks ago.
Their proponents draw on the language of the pro-life lobby and claim the baby boxes "protect a child's right to life" and have saved "hundreds of newborns". There are differing opinions on this key social issue across Europe. In France and Holland women have the right to remain anonymous to their babies after giving birth, while in the UK it remains a crime to secretly abandon a child. I guess some folks think that by making baby boxes go away that whatever the problem that is resulting in their existance will magically go away, too.
However UN officials argue that baby hatches violate key parts of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) which says children must be able to identify their parents and even if separated from them the state has a "duty to respect the child's right to maintain personal relations with his or her parent". In other words, socialist governments cannot afford this, and have therefore failed on their most basic responsibility.
In an interview with the Guardian, Maria Herczog, a member of the UNCRC committee, said that the arguments from critics were a throwback to the past. "Just like medieval times in many countries we see people claiming that baby boxes prevent infanticide ... there is no evidence for this." And there never will be, either. But if not infanticide, then the kid will grow up in a bad environment, whereas those who would take these children into their lives would more likely offer a much better environment. Your choice.
Herczog, a prominent child psychologist from Hungary, says baby boxes should be replaced by better state provision of family planning, counselling for women and support for unplanned pregnancies.
She likened the pro-baby box movements in Europe to the religious right in the US. "Very similar to the United States where we have the spread of the Safe Haven programme with baby boxes in 50 states since 1999. Now we have MEPs arguing for baby boxes and they just reject the convention." It's a denial thing. Sort of like death panels look bad for socialist governments, too. Except with baby boxes the kids stand a much better chance of living.
The committee wrote last year to the government in the Czech republic, which has seen 44 baby boxes set up since 2005, asking it "undertake all measures necessary to end the programme as soon as possible" because it looks bad.
The ensuing row spilt over borders with two dozen right-wing MEPs, including the current president of Hungary, writing to complain that baby boxes "offer(ed) a solution for women who unfortunately keep their pregnancy a secret and fear to approach official instructions".
In an email to the Guardian, Manfred Weber, German MEP and vice-chairman of the European People's Party -- the largest grouping on the centre right -- who signed the anti-UNCRC letter, said the issue was one of competing "rights". "Although I am convinced that a child is best raised within an intact family, the safety of children is of higher priority than their desire to know their biological parents," he said.
There is evidence that the baby box idea is popular. A Swiss poll in 2011 found 87% saying baby boxes were "very useful or useful" and more than a quarter of respondents thought every hospital should have one. And a loudmouthed minority think they shouldn't. Gee, who should we listen to?
Herczog said that the committee is undeterred. "We review countries' adherence to the convention. We did Czech Republic. Austria is coming up. I cannot say for sure but I can imagine we will do the same for Austria (as the Czech Republic)".
Her stance was backed by experts. Kevin Browne of the Centre for Forensic and Family Psychology at The University of Nottingham has just completed a two-year study into the phenomenon. He said of the 27 EU member countries, 11 still have "baby hatches" operating -- Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal and Slovakia.
"There is growing evidence that it is frequently men or relatives abandoning the child, raising questions about the mother's whereabouts and whether she has consented to giving up her baby," he said. "You also have to ask whether an anonymous drop allows the authorities to check whether there's a chance for the baby to remain with its family in the care of other relatives." Take DNA from each baby. Problem solved. And if someone doesn't want their relatives taking care of the baby, there's probably a reason.
Browne's research found that the Czech Republic and Lithuania both have an average of seven infants left in baby hatches per year, followed by Poland with six and Hungary and Slovakia with four -- and highlighted that baby boxes had flowered in post-Communist eastern Europe. And is therefore bad somehow?
Politicians in the former Communist bloc dispute this analysis. Miroslav Mikolaik, a Christian Democrat MEP from Slovakia, said that the "communist idea" was "to take away violently a child from a family that they considered as an enemy of regime and place him or her in a state orphanage ... If UN convention on the rights of the child's article 8 that guarantees children's right to know their own identity means the death of only one unwanted baby, it is a very wrong article and very wrong convention."
In western Europe the issue is complicated by religious practice and the law. Sari Essayah, Finnish MEP from the centre-right Christian Democrats, pointed out that in Scandinavia "two lesbians can get sperm anonymously and have children. They don't know the name of the donor. So what about the rights of the child? The UN have got it wrong here about baby boxes." Shh, you're harshing their mellow, man.
Perhaps the most taxing problem will be Germany, the powerhouse of Europe, which has about 80 baby boxes operating across the nation. The German constitution says all citizens have a right to "know of their origins" and fathers have a right to be part of a child's upbringing. Both are breached when a mother gives birth anonymously. Hatches are tolerated -- but earlier this year German ministers floated the possibility of a new "legal framework for confidential births".
In February the German Youth Institute found that the anonymous service had lost trace of a fifth of all abandoned babies -- giving ammunition to those who want to end the practice. It would be easier to just fix the paperwork problem. Unless you have other motives.
However Bernd Posselt, Christian Social Union MEP for Munich who signed the letter to the UNCRC last year, told the Guardian that "our experiences with baby-boxes here in Munich, for example organised by a monastery, have been positive. I know also the problems, but for me it is essential to protect and to safeguard the life of children in extreme situations. All other problems can be solved with good will as long as the child is alive. It is not the decision of an United Nations committee what we are doing to help born or unborn children". And the UN needs to stop intruding into matters that are not part of their charter. And to start properly taking care of matters that are part of their charter. But hey, if you can't do your job, might as well distract. Continued on Page 47
#4
Survival rates of babies left in a baby box: 100%
Survival rates of babies abandoned elsewhere: ?
Next question
Posted by: European Conservative ||
06/11/2012 17:27 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Easy, after the requisite study, a committee should recommend posession of a baby sized box as a crime against Humanity punishable by not less than 6 years.
Posted by: Ho Chi B. Hayes7277 ||
06/11/2012 17:31 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Survival rates of babies in an abortion clinic: very close to 0%
#7
Most (all?) states here have passed "no harm, no foul" laws that say you can leave a baby at a hospital, fire station, church(?), etc., and not get into trouble. And I'm fine with that, since it beats neglecting or killing the baby.
My question is, if they didn't want the baby, why did they carry it to full term and give birth when an abortion is so easy to get? Why go through all that trouble and pain if you're planning on throwing it away? It just doesn't make any sense.
As for the Useless Nitwits, they need to engage in retroactive self-abortion. It's for the children planet!
Posted by: Barbara ||
06/11/2012 19:40 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Barbara
The most powerful emotion. Procrastination.
The father of the al-Qaeda-inspired gunman Mohamed Merah went on a killin spree in France before being shot dead by police, has filed a murder suit in Paris, his lawyers said Monday.
Mohamed Benalel Merah said in March that he wanted to sue the RAID elite police unit that shot dead his son on March 22 during a shoot-out at the end of a 32-hour siege at his flat in the southern French city.
The 23-year-old had shot dead three soldiers, and three children and a teacher at a Jewish school, in a wave of killings that shocked the country.
He filmed himself carrying out the attacks and reportedly confessed to police before he was shot dead.
"This is a suit against unnamed persons for murder with aggravating circumstances concerning those who gave the orders at the top of the police" during the assault on Merah's flat in Toulouse, said lawyer Isabelle Coutant-Peyre.
"You've got 300 to 400 heavily armed people and a guy shut up all alone in his apartment. That alone is enough to raise questions," said Ms Coutant-Peyre, who is part of Merah's legal team headed by Algerian lawyer Zahia Mokhtari.
She said the family had video evidence that would be handed over to the authorities when they requested it.
Mokhtari said in April that she had proof that Merah was "liquidated", including two 20-minute videos probably filmed by Merah himself before he was shot
Continued on Page 47
Chrysi Avgi (Golden Dawn) spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris filed suits on Monday against the two parliamentary candidates he attacked last week during a TV panel discussion.
Kasidiaris accused Liana Kanelli of the Communist Party (KKE), who he punched three times, and SYRIZA's Rena Dourou, who he drenched in water, of unprovoked verbal abuses.
The Golden Dawn representative also sued Antenna TV, which hosted the program, of attempting to hold him against his wishes and journalist Antonis Delatolas, who was on the panel, of abuse of power.
Kasidiaris claims that Delatolas called first instance prosecutor Eleni Raikou to ask her to issue an arrest warrant and alleges that the journalist was on unusually friendly terms with the judicial official.
An arrest warrant had been issued for Kasidiaris after the incident on live TV but police were not able to track him down in the 48 hours needed so he could be fastracked through the justice system.
Kasidiaris issued a statement over the weekend saying the incident had been staged with the aim of making him and Golden Dawn look bad.
Kasidiaris was due to appear in court on Monday to face charges of being an accomplice in a violent attack on a student in 2007. The neo-Nazi politician denies driving the car that carried the victim's attackers.
A man from Iran who is an associate professor in an institute in Stockholm actually cut off his wife's lips with a knife and then proceeded to consume them.
The incident occurred in Stockholm when the 52-year-old man got furious with his much-younger wife. He was suspicious of his wife's activities and was convinced that she was involved in an extra-marital affair.
The husband does not regret his actions and feels he was honour bound to attack his 'cheating' wife.
Given the extent of injury to the woman, the prosectuion was gunning for a murder attempt but toned it down to grievous injury.
The woman is suffering and is in a lot of pain, a Swedish newspaper revealed. It is still not clear if her injuries can heal or not.
Continued on Page 47
#5
Convict, jail, at the end of his sentence repatriate him alone to his home country after giving all his assets to the injured wife. The principle here is that those who demonstrate inability to assimilate to the Western culture need to be required to live where they are more suited.
Europe has lit the fuse on an economic and financial bomb. The rescue package for Spain cannot plausibly be contained to 100bn once it begins, given the subordination of private creditors and collapse of global confidence in the governing structure of monetary union.
Continued on Page 47
Israel Radio reported late Thursday that the lead suspect in last weekend's anti-Semitic attacks in Lyon, La Belle France has turned himself in to police.
The suspect and 10 others attacked three people as they left the Beit Menachem Jewish school on Saturday night.
The French Interior ministry said the assailants wielded a hammer and an iron bar.
One victim sustained an open wound to the head, and another suffered a neck injury. Both men wore Jewish skullcaps.
La Belle France's national agency tasked with fighting anti-Semitism said the attackers were likely of North African extraction. Bet you didn't see that coming...
The agency said the attackers shouted anti-Semitic insults at the victims before attacking them.
Five of the suspected assailants are now in police custody.
La Belle France, home to western Europe's largest Jewish community, estimated at about 500,000 people, was shaken in March when a radical Islamist rubbed out a rabbi and three Jewish children in southwestern Toulouse ...lies on the banks of the River Garonne, half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. The Toulouse metropolitan area is the fourth-largest in La Belle France... Continued on Page 47
Belgian prosecutors on Thursday charged a high-profile Islamist radical with stoking hatred and violence during racial disturbances in Brussels last week.
According to AFP Fouad Belkacem, a 30-year-old Belgian man of Moroccan origin, was picked up at at his family home in the northern city of Antwerp early Thursday morning, and was placed in jug in a city jail.
Antwerp prosecutors' front man Paul Van Tigchelt told AFP that Belkacem was charged with "incitement to hatred and violence against a group of people because of their beliefs," a charge that could carry a sentence of between one month and one year behind bars.
Belkacem is being pursued after posting an 11-minute video on YouTube, the day after the controversial detention of a woman wearing a niqab, the Moslem veil which is banned under Belgian law.
Police had said the woman assaulted officers, but Belkacem, a front man for a group called Sharia4Belgium, said at the time that "the devil's servants who held our sister want to wage war on Moslems, but they won't win in Belgium."
Belkacem was sentenced in May to two years in prison, AFP reported, for incitement to racial hatred, but pending an appeal had yet to do time. He will go before a magistrate next week.
Previously, the report said, Belkacem had publicly urged Belgian Moslems to join armed jihadists.
Continued on Page 47
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The father of the al-Qaeda-inspired gunman Mohamed Merah went on a killin spree in France before being shot dead by police, has filed a murder suit in Paris, his lawyers said Monday. 
Chrysi Avgi (Golden Dawn) spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris filed suits on Monday against the two parliamentary candidates he attacked last week during a TV panel discussion.
Belgian prosecutors on Thursday charged a high-profile Islamist radical with stoking hatred and violence during racial disturbances in Brussels last week.
