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Baby Drop Off

Reading about drop boxes for unwanted babies in Japan is like life imitating fiction. This is a page out of the Coin Locker Babies. The drop box is supposed to help reduce the number of abortions. The underlying assumption is abandonment is somehow superior to abortion - that seems a very complex choice to take a definitive position about.

My friend D is adopted. She traced her biological mother after she became an adult. She is past forty now and only recently found the whereabouts of her biological father. The man refused to speak with her or acknowledge her.

She longs to know where she comes from; infact it is so important to her that not knowing makes it impossible for her to consider having children of her own - she does not want to perpetuate her own sense of rootlessness any further. D's story to me is one of abandonment and its painful emotional consequences.

Comments

ggop said…
I feel so sad for D. It must be heartbreaking to not even be able to make a connection with one's biological parents.

I had read that news item about cradles for babies a while ago.

Japan's society makeup is extremely homogenic.

If they are so worried about the population decline (I'm sure this is the reason for their incentives to women in their 30s to have kids etc)
why not allow immigrants from Korea and other places?

I suspect they aren't so comfortable with that idea.
gg

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