Child abandonment

Child abandonment is the practice of relinquishing interests and claims over one's offspring in an extralegal way with the intent of never again resuming or reasserting guardianship over them. Typically the phrase is used to describe the physical abandoning of a child, but it can also include severe cases of neglect and emotional abandonment, such as in the case of a parent who fails to offer financial and emotional support for his or her child over a long period of time. An abandoned child is referred to as a foundling (as opposed to a runaway or an orphan). Baby dumping refers to parents leaving a child younger than 12 months in a public or private place with the intent of terminating their care for the child. It is also known as rehoming, in cases where adoptive parents use illegal means, such as the internet, to find a new home for their child. In most cases, child abandonment is classified under a subsection of child abuse statutes and is punishable with a felony. Following felonious charges, one or both guardians give up their parental rights over the child thus severing their relationship with the child. Some states allow for a reinstatement of parental rights, in which case the parent or parents can have a relationship with the child again. However, it is unlikely that the parents can ever regain custody. The perpetrator can additionally be charged with reckless abandonment if the victim dies as a result of his or her actions or neglect. In 2015, it cost the United States' government over $9 billion to support 427,910 children who were in foster care. Child abandonment is illegal in the United States, but some states consider it to be a felony offense, while others categorize it as a misdemeanor, so punishments range from a $2,000 fine to up to five years in prison and a $125,000 penalty. Historically, many cultures practiced abandonment of infants, often called 'infant exposure.' Children were left on hillsides, in the wilderness, near churches, and in other public places. If taken up by others, the children might join another family either as slaves or as free family members. Roman societies in particular chose slaves to raise their children rather than family members, who were often indifferent towards their children. Although being found by others would allow children who were abandoned to often survive, exposure is sometimes compared to infanticide—as described by Tertullian in his Apology: 'it is certainly the more cruel way to kill... by exposure to cold and hunger and dogs.' Despite the comparison, other sources report that infanticide and exposure were viewed as morally different in ancient times. In the Early Middle Ages parents who did not want to raise their children gave them to monasteries along with a small fee, an act known as oblation. In times of social stress monasteries often received large numbers of children. By the high Middle Ages oblation was less common and something that was more often arranged privately between the monastery and the parents of the child. Sometimes medieval hospitals took care of abandoned children at the community's expense, but some refused to do so on the grounds that being willing to accept abandoned children would increase abandonment rates. Medieval laws in Europe governing child abandonment, as for example the Visigothic Code, often prescribed that the person who had taken up the child was entitled to the child's service as a slave. Conscripting or enslaving children into armies and labor pools often occurred as a consequence of war or pestilence when many children were left parentless. Abandoned children then became the ward of the state, military organization, or religious group. When this practice happened en masse, it had the advantage of ensuring the strength and continuity of cultural and religious practices in medieval society. Early Modern Europe saw the rise of foundling homes and increased abandonment of children to these homes. These numbers continued to rise and peaked when 5% of all births resulted in abandonment in France around 1830. The national reaction to this was to limit the resources provided by foundling homes and switch to foster homes instead such that fewer children would die within overcrowded foundling homes during infancy. As access to contraception increased and economic conditions improved in Europe towards the end of the 19th century the numbers of children being abandoned declined. Abandonment increased towards the end of the 19th century, particularly in the United States. The largest migration of abandoned children in history took place in the United States between 1853 and 1929. Over one hundred and twenty thousand orphans (not all of whom were intentionally abandoned) were shipped west on railroad cars, where families agreed to foster the children in exchange for their use as farmhands, household workers, etc. Orphan trains were highly popular as a source of free labor. The sheer size of the displacement as well as complications and exploitation that occurred gave rise to new agencies and a series of laws that promoted adoption rather than indenture. By 1945, adoption was formulated as a legal act with consideration of the child’s best interests. The origin of the move toward secrecy and the sealing of all adoption and birth records began when Charles Loring Brace introduced the concept to prevent children from the orphan trains from returning to or being reclaimed by their parents. Notable contemporary instances of child abandonment include homicidal neglect by confinement of infants or children such as in the affair of the Osaka child abandonment case or the affair of two abandoned children in Calgary, Alberta, Canada by their mother Rie Fujii.