Non-violent grass roots reform and Democracy: Epidemic of abandoned babies & possibly mothers

Within the past six weeks a SC mother was sentenced to 40 years for killing two newborns and a week ago ago another abandoned baby was found in Coppell, Tx. and the mother was arrested. These are just a couple of hundreds of babies abandoned and often killed, either intentionally or through neglect, every year; and, our government will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars punishing the perpetrators after the fact, but they won't spend money to prevent them from happening in the first place, nor for the most part will they spend money on research so they can understand how to prevent it.

A couple of the most recent studies open up by saying there's insufficient research on the subject and that the data isn't made available to researchers; and they follow up by studying media reports, which is better than nothing, and similar to what I'm doing. Nevertheless there's good reason to predict some of the leading causes of it and how to implement long term solutions, not just anonymous drop off baby boxes to put them up for adoption without letting them die. Professor Sherry Hamby hasn't focused on this particular subject, but she has argued that all violence and many other social problems are interrelated and that contributing causes of many other issues will help solve this problem, including improved child care, education, efforts to prevent early child abuse, especially since many of the parents abandoning these babies were almost certainly abused as kids, before becoming the abusers.

Furthermore, even though there's inadequate research on this subject, there's good reason to believe that it will be much less expensive to solve the problem than to deal with the consequences after then fact, with many of the babies dying or having other health and emotional problems.

Even though there's inadequate research on the subject, including the background of most of the parents abandoning children, there's enough research, either from the few that do report some details, or the research into other major social problems which are almost guaranteed to be a contributing factor. There's good reason to believe that poverty, drug addiction, early child abuse of the parents years if not decades before they became perpetrators, lack of availability of child care or economic opportunities, refugees forced into desperate measures and other serious social problems are contributing factors to this problem.

Estimates for abandoned babies in unsafe places range from 150 per year to one almost every day, although most reports indicate that there's insufficient data. There are some articles listed below that indicate that the problem is much worse in some third world countries, including India, Pakistan and South Africa, that are less capable of handling their social problems than us. It's hard to tell whether other developed countries including Europe or Canada are better or worse off than us.

Presumably, the vast majority of abandoned babies are left in hospitals, as a study from twenty-seven years ago shows; however the number of those abandoned babies may be as much as sixty times higher or more, assuming there hasn't been much change. And, the following article shows that they had some good research, even back then, to show how to solve the problem, yet the political establishment did the opposite since then:

22,000 Babies Left in Hospitals, Study Finds : Families: U.S. survey includes those abandoned by parents each year. 75% of those tested had been exposed to drugs. 11/10/1993

WASHINGTON — A federal study has found that at least 22,000 babies are left in hospitals each year by parents unwilling or unable to care for them, indicating for the first time how widespread the nation’s “boarder baby” problem has become.

The study, commissioned by the Department of Health and Human Services and forwarded to Congress, found that the babies were clustered in six major urban areas, with Cook County (Chicago), Ill., New York City and Washington, D.C., having the highest numbers.

Three-quarters of the boarder babies tested had been exposed to drugs and were black, the report found. Twelve percent were white and 8% Latino, the study found.

Researchers said their figures probably underestimated the extent of the problem. But using the 22,000 figure, the report estimated that caring for the boarder babies costs from $22 million to as much as $125 million annually.......

“We don’t have drug treatment on demand, we have not done much to lift young families out of poverty, and we’re now paying for it in the form of thousands of kids who are going to end up in the child welfare system because they’re going to be abandoned by moms who can’t take care of them,” said David Lieberman, executive director of the Child Welfare League of America. Complete article

If you accept these estimates of the amount of money that it costs to take care of these babies in foster care, then it comes to between $1,000 and $5,682 per baby, which is almost certainly an underestimate of the cost, even in 1993. Regardless of the actual cost, this article shows that the academic world was aware of how to reduce this problem at least twenty seven years ago and other studies surely show they had more research even earlier, while the political establishment began using deceptive propaganda like the false claims by Reagan about welfare queens riding Cadillac's, while the good research is buried where few people read it.

I'm not aware of any studies that directly say they can reduce the number of babies abandoned and save money at the same time; however, I am aware of studies that show we can reduce drug addiction, homelessness, child abuse, and probably other social problems and save money at the same time, since it costs much more to deal with the consequences later after the problems escalate. Furthermore, there are a growing number of reports about the number of babies left in "baby bins" allowing anonymous parents to leave them where they'll be quickly found and saved. Few if any of those babies die, and it's much less expensive than ignoring the problem, avoiding the need to send desperate mothers to jail for decades. There's a chance that some of them might have otherwise been abandoned at a hospital, but it's unlikely to be many. The bigger problem with this is that it does nothing to help the at risk mothers, a few that have abandoned several babies, which is why we shouldn't rely solely on this partial solution, even though it does help in the short run.

However, if we address the root causes of violence and the desperation that leads to abandoning babies, then they're much less likely to do so and there will be no doubt that it would save money and as I said there are studies showing that we can do that with at least some of them and save money at the same time. In a previous article, Machiavellian Ideology Ignores Real Science, I cited several studies based on Finland's efforts to solve their homeless problem, which saved money and reduced homelessness, and Portugal's problem with drug addiction, as well as some efforts to reduce contributing causes of violence. Another article, Ten Ways To Reduce Violence, Backed Up By Research, goes a little further citing research to reduce violence including a study on home visitor programs to at risk families, and Zagar's study which allegedly saves more than six dollars for every one dollar spent trying to help at risk parents and children before they become violent, which is much more effective than prisons and courts that try to solve problems by punishing people after the fact, which is a proven failure as a deterrence.

If they collected full data then it would be easy to determine whether or not countries or states that provide better social services have fewer abandoned babies, which is virtually guaranteed, although it's hard to tell how much fewer. However, a search of the internet for babies abandoned in Finland, Portugal or other countries with better social services indicates that it almost certainly makes a large difference. I couldn't find one abandoned baby in Finland, and only one in Portugal, which was the baby of a homeless mother. This isn't comprehensive data, just a news story about one abandoned baby; so it's no guarantee that there aren't more. Switzerland and Belgium may be better examples, Since I found more comprehensive lists of their abandoned babies, and they're both significantly better than the United States, when adjusted for population, in their worst years, assuming the data is reasonably complete.

Switzerland provided a reasonably complete list of babies abandoned, either in the "baby windows" or in an unsafe location in Fewer babies abandoned or killed in Switzerland thanks to the baby window 2020 and their worst year was 2015, with four babies left in the window, who all survived, and three others left at unsafe location that died. Two of those babies were twins born to an immigrant, who was probably disadvantaged, indicating that mothers raised with social programs available to most residents are less likely to abandon their baby. I found one estimate that 150 babies are abandoned in the United States in unsafe places, with most of them dying, and another estimate, which I suspect is closer to the truth, that there's a newborn baby killed nearly every day. If the lower estimate of 150 is accurate, then Switzerland's worst year is 21% lower than our average; if the higher estimate is accurate, then their worst year is 60% worse than our average. Either way their average number of dead babies appears to be a fraction of ours, whether it's a quarter or an eighth, depending on which estimates are closer.

According to Belgium's baby box has record year 03/01/2018, "Katrin Beyer from the charity told the UK newspaper The Telegraph that four babies were left in the box in 2017," and the total number of babies over a seventeen year period was only thirteen, and most if not all of these babies presumably lived. This article doesn't say how many babies were abandoned in unsafe paces. However, sixteen out of the twenty six abandoned babies in Switzerland were placed in their "baby hatch" with most if not all living and two of the remaining ten were found alive and save. If Belgium had a similar percentage of their babies left in a safe location, they probably had fewer deaths, when adjusted for population, than Switzerland, and significantly fewer than the United States. Furthermore, the people reporting on Belgium's record year indicated that it was almost certainly a result of their rising poverty rates that year, which indicates that if we stop rigging the economy for the wealthy we could greatly reduce this problem, even in countries doing a much better job addressing social issues.

These countries, which our political leaders often demonize as socialists, are outraged that they have this problem, even though it's not nearly as bad as ours, and demand that their government does something about it. They're much more likely to base their decisions on good research, and they save money by reducing the contributing causes of social problems and have a higher quality of life than us.

There are also a relatively small number of people in our country who do their own research, despite lack of coverage by mainstream media on the subject, and support the most effective solutions to many social problems, including this one. These people often recognize that not only can they effectively solve problems for working class people and the poor, but it save an enormous amount of money, yet they can't get any media coverage. On the rare occasion where the mainstream media does cover this they report only on punishment as a deterrent, even though it doesn't work, demonizing the poor, without discussing the rigged economy and epidemic levels of white collar crime that contributes to this.

Another major issue that would certainly help solve this problem would be single payer health care. There are numerous studies showing that this saves lives and money; these studies only get slightly more coverage than the other ones I mentioned and part of the reason for that is a strong effort by activists pushing it in alternative media enough so that even traditional media has to mention it. The would presumably include access to free counseling, birth control and even abortion. There's no doubt that this would help solve many social problems, yet the same people trying to deprive people of this, often pretending to be "pro-life," fight to cut funds for programs that work and even demonize them.

There's little doubt that if we did more research on this subject, and many others it would show how to solve the problem. The same goes for many other subjects, including how many homeless people are dying in the cold, how military indoctrination contributes to blind obedience and violence, either in wars based on lies, or after they return without treating PTSD, how many people kill for insurance or commit fraud, how much crime is related to gambling, and many other things.

Instead of a government that responds to the best research designed to solve social problems or the will of the people, we have a Machiavellian oligarchy where the media only covers candidates supported by Wall Street and they're relentlessly trying to "keep the citizens poor," so they can control them instead of looking out for our best interest, regardless of the social costs. Then they demonize good researchers as "Socialists," even though the countries with the best quality of life and most capable of solving social problems are at least partly Socialist, and our government is actually Corporate Socialism, subsidizing the rich creating an Oligarchy, not a Free Market, as they claim!

Reba McEntire & Darius Rucker

"In The Ghetto"
As the snow flies
On a cold and gray Chicago morn'
A poor little baby child is born
In the ghetto (in the ghetto)

And his mama cries
'Cause if there's one thing that she don't need
It's another little hungry mouth to feed
In the ghetto (in the ghetto)

People, don't you understand
The child needs a helping hand
Or he'll grow to be an angry young man some day
Take a look at you and me
Are we too blind to see
Do we simply turn our heads and look the other way?

As the world turns
And a hungry little boy with a runny nose
Plays in the street as the cold wind blows
In the ghetto (in the ghetto)

And his hunger burns
So he starts to roam the streets at night
He learns how to steal, and he learns how to fight
In the ghetto (in the ghetto)

Then one night in desperation
The young man breaks away
He buys a gun, steals a car
Tries to run, but he don't get far
And his mama cries

As a crowd gathers 'round an angry young man
Face down on the street, a gun in his hand
In the ghetto (in the ghetto)

And as her young man dies
On a cold and gray Chicago morn'
Another little baby child is born
In the ghetto (in the ghetto)

And her mama cries (in the ghetto)
(In the ghetto)
(Why?)
A-Z Lyrics