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This would be quite an interesting post.

Remember the kid with Down syndrome who I blogged about 2 days back? This morning when my friends when to have a chat with his mum. She does not have the faintest idea that her son is having a chromosome disease. Later on the genetic consultants had a talk with her and she was informed finally. Broke down. And the next thing is, she is thinking whether or not to reject her son.

I don’t know what suitable words should be used here. To renounce? To reject? To refuse custody? But I guess it doesn’t mean anything. The baseline is, she is deciding whether or not to abandon him.

The law of the Federation gives permission to mothers to ‘abandon’ the child. It is actually LEGAL. And their care will be taken care of by the federation/government.

Absurd?

The thing is, a mother has the rights to say no without any reason. As long as she wants it. It could be socioeconomic reason - father freaked out, no father, economically impossible, emotionally unstable, wicked mother in-law, or somatic disorders like congenital defects, unhealthy kids, all those syndromes and etc. The baseline understanding here is, they CAN if they WANT TO.

We were quite surprised when this ‘law’ was told to us accidentally by our teacher. Further questioning made it clear that the mothers have their rights to refuse their children when they are in the hospital, despite whatever reason.

At first we thought this is a cruel stupid law, but after some discussions, it actually makes sense.

Russian’s population had been declining. The government had did a lot to increase the reproduction rate, for example- by paying mothers when they give birth, and now this ‘new found’ law (had been around very long but we are ignorant of it).

At least with this ‘rights’, (pros)…

1. People would not dump their unwanted kids on the streets or even poison/kill them as they can give it to the government. (by this I mean that the kid could have some serious case, not failing some test or what). And alive is definitely better than death. I think nobody wants to be a killer.
2. Such kids who are with congenital defects or mental retardation can be put under the supervision of a government body. Provided better care compared to those parents who could not or do not want to care for them.
3. They get basic education! (better than got picked up by some organization and make them into beggers).
4. Better quality of life. (given food each day, clothes during winter).
5. IF the parents REPENT or notice one day later that what a great sin they had done in denying that he is their son, they still can repay back, or find him again, instead of facing the fact that they killed them while they were still in the womb or when they were already born.
6. Personally I think it is a quite humane law.
7. Hopefully reduce abortion.
8. The MAIN pro is, they got to live this life.

I think this ‘Right’ is based on the welfare of the children, instead of paying attention to what the parents want because obviously abandoning your children already make them less humane. Even animals don’t do that.

However, maybe with this (cons)..

1. People do not take raising their children properly?
2. Am not really sure, but if it is implemented in Malaysia, you will have mum who says ‘If you don’t get no.1 this sem, I’m going to send u to orphanage!’ I guess without this ‘rights’ being practiced in Malaysia, parents had already started to say like that!
3. I feel that with this ‘right’, it kinda take away some of the main responsibility or moral understanding of a parents because I thought parents are suppose to accept their child no matter what they are.

Personally, I always have the idea of - ‘who am I to determine whether they would want to stay alive or not?’. I started thinking this way when I heard about this famous law suit of a defect child suing the doctor for bringing him to this world and he (the kid) actually won (if not mistaken).

Can’t really think of much harm actually. What do you think?