Ken Chaddock wrote:
Fred wrote:
Ken Chaddock wrote:

Update, with a little further research I've discovered that
apparently there are now 47 states with "safe haven" laws and, wonder
of all wonders, a couple of them will also accept an infant from a
man without asking questions...but only a couple...
...and NO Fred, this ISN'T adoption...


So tell me, what are the differences? And more importantly, what is it
about adoption that caused 47 state legislatures to feel it necessary
to pass these "safe haven" laws? There must be something ...

[sanctimony deleted]

The main difference between safe haven provisions and adoption is in
adoption you have to have found other *suitable* parents who are willing
to relieve you of your parental obligations by accepting full
responsibility for the child(ern) themselves...

Well, *someone* has to find adoptive parents. There are government
agencies that perform that task. There are brokers that facilitate that
task. But yes, it has to be done.

... in safe haven/drop off
situations there is no such requirement, you just dump the infant and
walk away...no strings attached and the child becomes the ward of the
state. It's interesting that the primary objection by many to allowing
fathers to "just walk away" (C4M) is an objection to the state "paying
for" someone else's child yet this is *exactly* what occurs in a "safe
haven/drop-off situation for women....hummm

Which gets us back to that choice between "safe haven" and seeing the
child dropped off at a firehouse, and no "safe haven" and seeing the
child die in a dumpster.

What y'all want fathers to be able to walk away from is financial
responsibility.

I have no particular problem with safe have laws and would certainly
rather see a child safe than left to die in a dumpster but I am upset
than in virtually all of the statutes that I have actually read (37 to
date) they speak specifically about the mother having this right and no
one else...it's just another example of the huge systemic bias that
favours mothers (note, not children) to the detriment of
fathers...mothers have been given legal "reproductive rights" that DO
NOT stem from biology while fathers have had their natural "reproductive
rights" legally restricted. This is unfair, unjust and probably
unconstitutional to boot...

Ken, I don't mind you being resentful. You can be as resentful as you
like. But this is not a simplistic issue, and there are competing
interests to consider. In my opinion, the overriding interest must be in
protecting the child, and if that means that we have to let mom walk
away, distasteful though that may be, when the alternative is seeing the
child die in a dumpster, then that's what we have to do. You don't have
to like it, but for the sake of that child I really do think that you're
gonna have to put up with it.