Abandonment Law Research Paper

Society understands our current system is awful, but no one is protesting for a reform, or they’re aren’t trying hard enough. Child safety is the number one objective of the system, but it’s not working like it should. “In 2015, over 670,000 children spent time in U.S. foster care” (Foster Care). Of those 670,000 cases, more than half could be eliminated with a reform in the system. The focus should be on keeping families together, rather than taking them apart.

In the book Unwind by Neal Shusterman a law is passed to where mothers who can no longer can finically support their babies or no longer want their infant, are permitted to leave the unwanted child on someone else's porch, also referred to as "storking". This law or,"Storking Initave", was passed to result in less abortions. Under one circumstance, if the mother is caught leaving the child on a random family's porch, the mother has to keep their child. After the birth mother is caught she has the option of keeping the child or sending it to the state home to be come a ward of the state. If the family who received the baby keeps the child they become the parents of the child, but if the family does not want it they are allowed to pass it on to someone else's porch.The child is now referred to as a "stork".

In some ethical and legal respects a pregnant woman and her fetus can be considered separate. Both the woman and the fetus are ordinarily affected by the well-being of one another for as long as each of them live. The ethical and legal issues are challenged deeply in cases where the well-being of the fetus and the mother appear to be in conflict. Our society struggles with identifying cases where the pregnant woman’s interests and/or behaviors might put her fetus at risk. Criminal and/or civil commitments should be used to bar pregnant women from exposing their fetuses to risk.

The National Children 's Alliance reported that the number of unique cases of abused and neglected children in the United States stands at an annual rate of 700,000 and rising (as cited in ?U.S. Department of Health & Human Services,? 2016, p. ii). Sadly, this means that more than 1,900 new children become victims of abuse and neglect with each passing day. Neglect was the type of

The problems at hand that the SIMARRA Act bill is proposing to address, involves child welfare issues, women’s health concerns, and a lack of protection and healthcare needs for these women and their unborn children within the criminal justice system. According to the bill, it has been propositioned to enhance the welfare and public health for incarcerated pregnant women and mothers by improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the Federal prison system, by establishing a pilot program of critical-stage, developmental nurseries in Federal prisons for children born to inmates, with risk needs assessments, and risk and recidivism reduction (H.R.5130, 2016). The bill is intended to focus and alleviate the lack thereof adequate care, stress, and hazardous health practices that incarcerated mothers are experiencing with their infant babies, while also monitoring the health of these women. Both the mothers and infants are affected in these situations because the health of the mother has substantial

If the mother usually leaves the child with the father , the father is also illy prepared. Also, including first time parents are very unprepared as well. If the child is acting poorly , the mother,father,or parents may not know the difference between punishment or maltreatment (abuse). “The vagueness of abuse definitions, the authors contend, results in the failed fulfillment of laws, inconsistent case outcomes, and the risk of incorrectly identifying or dismissing findings of maltreatment”(Doriane, Kenneth,and Sarah). Not only with maltreatment, but say, the parents don't have very much money by the time they find out they are going to have a baby. The mother (or father or parents) may stress out as to what they might be getting the baby to sleep in, the bottles, baby gates, strollers, or high chairs. The mother (if she is single) may get stressed out and stressing out the mother will hurt the baby causing the baby to miscarry.

Nowadays, we see this abandonment in pregnant teenagers who are not ready for a child just yet. A girl throws her baby in a dumpster because she knows she can’t

Many people think it is wrong to just leave your child at a hospital and forget about it, but there are worse fates for children whose parents did not know about the Safe Haven Laws. The risk of homicide on the first day of life is 10 times greater than the rate during any other time of life (Herman-Giddens 1425). In a population-based study called Newborns Killed or Left to Die by a Parent, five authors describe cases of infant death and abandonment in North Carolina, “Over a 16 year period in North Carolina, we report 34 newborns known to be killed or discarded in the first day of life by (or likely) the parents, an annual rate of 2.1 per 100,000 newborns” (Herman-Giddens 1428). Sadly, only a few deaths were unintentional, “The majority of these cases (91.2%) were ruled as homicides, while three were found to be unintentional due to natural causes” (Herman-Giddens 1428). Mothers were usually the ones that abandon or kill the newborn, “mothers were the perpetrators in all cases where the perpetrator was positively identified” (Herman-Giddens 1428).

While looking at the dangers and environment in a child’s home, advocates such as employees of the Department of Family and Protective Services of the State of Texas, have the moral obligation to take into consideration safety of children shelters and foster homes. Morally, advocates for the children should also take into consideration the psychological trauma that the child may or may not experience through being taken away from family and being placed, possibly multiple times, at new places away from everything they know.

Historical background was provided in great detail on infanticide in the opening section, this set a precedent that these topics were researched in great length. Throughout the chapter, Davis provided historical support on the other topics presented in this chapter through court cases and research studies. Davis’ support was most beneficial when presented in the form of court cases that have shaped the laws present today and even those that are not commonly known.

By the year 1967, all U.S. states had child abuse reporting laws. “Child abuse reporting laws and enhanced awareness of child abuse produced an increase in intervention” (Myers, 2013). As reporting laws came into affect, more and more cases of child abuse and neglect were shown. By the mid 1970s, over 60,000 child abuse cases were reported and the extremely high rate of children in foster care alarmed government officials. In 1980, the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act (AACWA) was passed. This act required every state to make reasonable efforts in keeping children with their families, and when removing the child was not avoidable, the child was required to have a plan to be placed back in the home or have their parents’ rights revoked. For the children whom returning home was not an option, Congress offered financial incentives for adoption. This effort to preserve the families was a main objective of AACWA. An influential investigation pertaining to this was done by Henry S. Mass and Richard E. Engler, as explained by Sribnick (2011). They concluded that many children were living a majority of their childhood years in foster care and institutions. Their findings showed that if a child stayed in foster care for more than a year and a half, it was not likely that he or she would ever be reunited with his or her family or be adopted. In response to this, the Child Welfare League of America lobbied for child welfare workers to consider

A women shouldn't have to get rid of her child because she can’t afford to keep it there need to be better systems in place to prevent this from happening. This is another example of death through flight because the mother’s give their babies to death because they feel it will be better than having the baby

One of the most hurtful thing anyone could do is allow the government to take their child away. In the United States over a half a million children are in foster care. Within the recent years changes in reducing the time that children spend in foster care have caused more adoption. In Texas 12,000 children live in institutions as foster children. The federal government has mandated that Texas must change its system dramatically. Most states have only 18 months to reunite children with their families or put them up for adoption and or enter permanent foster care. With a shortage of funding hundreds of children sleep in state buildings and with this comes a lot of pressure. Texas lawmakers will have a lot to deal with because of its broken system.

In this one case alone we can track this incidence from the mother all the way to the role society played. First, the patient had three children from three different fathers, all of whom did not provide any support for her. The first father could have been written off as bad judgment, but to attempt to write off three would be an injustice to her. It is evident due to some emotional attachment to the idea of not wanting to be alone she was able to rationalize her decisions based on that concept. Because of self deception she refused to even entertain the thought of whether these man had any qualities that would make good fathers. Had she not refrained from making judgement on these man father the first father she would have been able to recognize the signs that this man might not make a good father in a nutshell she would have been able to learn from her prior mistakes. However, father she decides to better herself and her children we see society impede this improvement. After she is hospitalized, Social Services sent the two year old to live with his father whose daily routine consisted of a life of "drinking, whoring and fighting." Enlight of all the evidence pointing to a bad home situation Social Services stated "it was wrong to pass judgement on a man like this." The contradiction however is shown after the father and his girlfriend kill the two year old and as a result

The choice between adoption and abortion changes millions of lives every day. Some advocates of abortion feel if the mother of the child thinks that she will not be a good parent or thinks she will harm the child, that she has the right to abort the child. Abortion is a life changing decision and has the reputation of being an easy way out of an unwanted pregnancy. Adoption, on the other hand, is one way for a woman who is not prepared to be a parent to provide her child the best life possible without being involved in the child’s life. According to national estimates, one million children in the United States live with adoptive parents and from 2% to 4% of American families include an adopted