The idea in question is putting “No Baby Dumping” stickers on Santa Cruz city dumpsters.
Now, it’s been an ongoing battle with myself for some years to keep my inner cynic from completely engulfing and devouring my inner optimist. This kind of thing doesn’t help the underdog in that battle. I mean, the problem of some allegedly human beings literally throwing their children away–whether from blank nescient desperation or some sort of emotional defect–gives my inner cynic enough muscles already. And what defense does my optimist have here?
Optimist: Er…see, someone could be intending to throw their baby away. And they go to this dumpster, you see, and they’re about to toss the kid in, but then, ah ha!, then they see the WARNING STICKER that says not to, and they’re like, “Oh, shit! I guess I can’t dump my baby after all! I never ealized!” and then they return home and raise someone who cures cancer and an after-school special gets made about it.
Cynic: [repeats everything the optimist just said in a smirking tone.]
Optimist: [breaks down crying and hands over lunch money]
I’m just utterly baffled. But hell, my inner cynic’s been smacking around my innards for awhile, and maybe this will turn the problem right around. After a few years when baby-dumping disappears because of the warning stickers, everyone will start wearing shirts labeled “No Mugging, Assaulting, or Murdering” and so forth, and crime will disappear.
It does seem pretty stupid at first glance. (And having lived in Santa Cruz, very little they might do would surprise me…) But reading the article and watching the accompanying video feed, it’s a little more complex than that.
And the stickers don’t say “No Baby Dumping!”, they say (in English and Spanish) “Please don’t throw your baby away. You can leave it is safe hands at…(details about new law)”
So it’s not as stupid as it sounds. More like informing a desperate person of an option she may not have known about. I don’t know if it will have any effect, but it’s not as dumb as the sound-bite version makes it sound.
Is this thing for real? i can’t believe it, and I also can’t believe that woman who actually thought it would work. I think that the type of person who would go to a dump to do such a thing probably wouldn’t know how to read anyway. I had no idea thae problem was that bad.
Granted, it does sound a little stupid, but if one baby is saved because its mother saw the sign and learned that there is another alternative, then it is worth it.
Yep…But the problem is that following this argument, pretty much every possible warning about pretty much everything posted pretty much everywhere would be worth it.
I would guess that broadcasting this information on TV, for instance, would be far more efficient.
I’m wondering if the “No Baby Dumping” signs are also a way to protect the city from liability. Suppose a baby is dumped and survives, but develops problems as a result. Could the city be liable for not having “No Baby Dumping” signs?
Before you dismiss this as the silliness that it rightly is, cities have been hit with jury awards for similar situations (people laying down on subway tracks and getting hit by trains, etc.). As it is, many of the warnings on the products we buy (“Do not iron clothers while wearing them.”) are a result of lawsuits or fear of lawsuits. I’m wondering if these signs are not really to stop someone from dumping the baby, but simply to cover the city’s possible liability.
I don’t see the stupidity here. I imagine the sorts of people who would be in a situation mentally where they would consider putting a baby into a dumpster would not be aware that there is an alternative that won’t land them in jail. Many cities now have designated hospitals that will take dropped off babies- no questions asked. At least the sticker might give the person an option that they didn’t think they had a moment ago.
I, too, wish it weren’t needed, but apparently the problem is still going on, despite safe drop off centers. What better way to get the message out then to target the people who are commiting these crimes. What else should they do- print up an ad in the paper advertising drop off places? Go door to door?
Santa Cruz is a lovely place and the citizens there are, to put it mildy, extremely socially concious. It is also, I believe, the most expensive city in the United States, with a mediun priced house going for $500K+. To think that I once lived there on a VW mechanic’s wage.
A VW mechanic? Heh. When I lived there, one of the many nicknames we had for the place (including Hippietown, USA and The PC Capital of the World) was the VW Graveyard.
And yes, you’re right—it is very very beautiful and very very expensive.
well, let’s see. how many babies are placed (live) in dumpsters in the first place?
according to this for the last year that data is available, (1998), there were 108 babies abandoned “in public places”. NOt necessarily dumpsters.
It would be my belief that if the intent of the mother was to allow the baby to live, and that the infant had been born alive, that the likelihood of them selecting a trash dumpster for the place to drop them would be very, very small (IOW, those very few depositing them in dumpsters - either believed the child was dead, the child was dead already, or really didn’t give a shit at all). These are not the likely candidates to drop them off in approved places, I would suggest.
as for the argument “if it saves one child” type of thing - I absolutely agree that saving that one child is a lofty and worthwhile goal.
However, perhaps a better method of ‘getting the word out’ to the target audience could be developed. Billboards? advertising? rallys? notices at public health clinics? notices at schools? Those all, to me, would be more likely to fall on those who need the information, vs. the trash bin dumping mom, who (I believe) is not likely to be a receptive recipient.
(the article linked mentions that 11 babies were dropped off at safe places, and 18 others found dead ‘mostly in/around trash recepticles’. the inference is that had those stickers been there, those 18 moms would have said ‘oops, let’s go elsewhere’ - but that assumes that the babies were alive when they were abandoned, and that again, the mom cared.)
It seems to me that this would have the opposite effect: before they didn’t have signs, but no one had signs. Now, if in five, ten, fifteen years a lawsuit errupts, the plaintiff’s lawyers will be able to point at the dirty tarnished, ripped remnents of this sticker on the dumpster and say: “See?! They knew it was their job to put these signs up, but they were lax in maintaining them, and hence this tragedy occured.”
Ferrous, I lived in Santa Cruz during the 1960s and early 1970s. I had my own shop on Portola Drive—most of my customers were hippies and surfers. I used to receive herbs as a bonus for jobs well done. Back in the good old days.
Man, the mythical good old days that I keep hearing about. Back when people didn’t pay $1,200 a month to live in a one-bedroom shack (but boy do I love my shack, two blocks from the ocean and two feet from the roar of Murray street).
Anyway, the signs don’t seem like that bad of an idea to me. They won’t exactly hurt anyone, and it is conceivable that they might do some good. They might provide some information or at least a pang of conscious in a desperate person.
