Baby Drop Off Boxes? WHAT?!

This morning I ran into a post in my Facebook feed about 2 Edmonton hospitals opening up baby drop boxes & questioning if it should be legal. Below this post were many mixed comments for both sides of the argument. So I decided to look into it and see what these "Baby drop off boxes" are all about. I chose not to comment back on the post on Facebook in fear of being 'attacked" but thought the opinion of a young women should be put out there.

Baby Drop Off Boxes are pretty much what your thinking they are. They are a "drop-box" to safely leave a baby in because you believe you can not care for the baby and have decided to give up the child. With these boxes parents can leave their child safely with no questions asked.

The drop off box is basically a door in the wall that opens up to a little cupboard with a small plastic crib with a blanket and teddy bear inside it. The parent opens the door on the outside and after a minute a alarm goes off alerting a nurse that a child was potentially left inside the crib. The nurse then checks through a little peep hole to see if their is a child and if the door on the outside is closed ( so they know the parent is gone to allow the parent to stay anonymous ). The nurse would then take the baby and it would be checked over. If the child has no signs of physical harm then the hospital has no reason for searching for the baby's parents and the baby is handed over to child services for adoption.

Personally I don't think these boxes should be illegal. If you think about it, what sounds like the better option: having a baby in the drop box, or finding a baby in a dumpster, or at the side of a road. I think it would be a better option to leave the baby safely and let it go to someone who is going to love it and care for it rather than leave it to die.

Some of the comments say that it is becoming way to easy to abandon babies. For one I think its at least good they are giving a SAFE way to abandon them and second I don't think it makes it that easy. You go through the process of a child growing inside you and the pain of giving birth, I doubt your just going to say okay cool I'm just going to throw this in the drop box now and forget this happened. It is still going to be a tough choice to decide if you just want to say goodbye to this little human that you carried and gave birth to. Some other comments said why don't these young people think about the consequences of having sex, or use some form of birth control. Who says its ONLY for young parents? Yes that's most likely the main target group. But, it is still for everyone. Also with the sex ed classes I have been through that were mandatory through school ( unless your parents signed a form saying no) I'm sure they are aware of the consequences and know that basically sex = baby. I am also pretty sure they know about birth control methods, but lets be real the only 100% safe way is having no sex. Unfortunately it seems that the younger generation is engaging in sexual activities and not waiting ( I can hear the moms out there cringing!). Sure they got the sex talk at school & some also got  the talk at home, but I think many of us underestimate the power of desire and urges, as well as the effectiveness of BC pills, condoms, etc. It seems we keep adding these sex ed lessons and robot babies to the high school experience, I personally don't think it is as effective in preventing teen parents as people had hoped.

To be honest I know I felt very uncomfortable ( as well as many others) during sex ed & that I enjoyed having that robot baby. But how many of us students did it effect enough that we said "hey, babies are a lot of work and I should wait to have sex." I don't think it was that many. The classes were either to graphic for us that we tuned out the best we could or found ways to leave class, or they sparked our minds into digging deeper on our own and many exploring and experimenting way more than we should ( In my opinion) .

I don't think these boxes should be illegal. I don't exactly like the idea of someone abandoning their child, but I'm sure it takes a lot of thought and it is going to be used as a last resort.