Switzerland The Crisis leaves young Berlin mothers in despair

January 1, 2004

Comment: The Swiss article describes the German “baby hatch” program, which allows women to give birth anonymously and to place their babies in the “hatch” from where these babies can be put up for adoption. According to the coordinator of one of these baby hatches, a female minister in Berlin, there are babies in the hatch every week since last winter – signaling the worsening of the situation, due to the economic crisis. While the minister was expecting that young, first-time mothers would resort to the baby hatch, in fact women are between 27 and 34 and already have at least one child.

While each baby given up has 14 potential adoptive parents, the phenomenon points to a much larger social problem: single mothers with children cannot find employment, subjecting them to poverty. The discrimination of single mothers by employers and the lack of care facilities for these mothers are problems the German government needs to tackle, with or without the current economic crisis. According to the Ministry of Families 2,4 million children (every sixth) were at risk of poverty. I*n 80% of the cases they were children of single mothers.* The charity “Table” is quoted saying that it provides warm meals to about 200’000 children regularly.

The article also makes reference to a Swiss Parliamentary initiative as well, that wants t*o make baby hatches legal in Switzerland*: according to surveys every third hospital in Switzerland had anonymous births in their practice, while it is still theoretically illegal.

The “baby hatch” is a big step backwards, considering the rights of thechild to know the identity of his biological parents since the motherhas the possibility to leave a child behind anonymously. Furthermore, themother doesn’t benefit from any medical and psychological supportbefore, during and after the birth of the child. The first “babyhatches” in Germany have been created in 1999. Statistics have shownthat the number of child murder or the abandonment of children leadingto death has not decreased since. Thus, it is not a question of savinginnocent lives, but rather a question of creating opportunities todispose of an “unwanted burden”. We have the same phenomenon inemerging countries: the more institutions and homes you create for thecaretaking of children, the more children are placed in these centers.It certainly cannot be considered as a progress if we make “babyhatches” legal in Switzerland.

The original article (in German) can be found here