The plight of babies born to parents who cannot raise them, whether for financial, emotional or other reasons, is older than Moses.
Solutions to such problems are rarely anything other than heartbreaking, but in the past decade laws have been passed that at least eliminate some of the worst outcomes.
Child abandonment—the proverbial newborn wrapped in a blanket and left on a doorstep, exposing the child to the whims of fate and opening the parents to prosecution—is a problem the U.S. is taking very seriously. Every state has passed “safe haven” laws to make responsible alternatives available, usually involving the parents’ legally turning their child over to local welfare services and temporary foster care.
Since the last safe-haven law was passed in 2008, the fastest growing category of children entering foster care has been newborns. Adoptive families are easier to find for babies than for older children, but infants are also more vulnerable to the variability and sometimes instability of foster care.
[For more of this story go to http://www.theatlantic.com/spo...n/416/?utm_source=TL]
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