Tea at Trianon: Chinese Baby Hatches

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Chinese Baby Hatches

Well, at least it's better than abortion and infanticide. From Smithsonian:

According to the South China Morning Post, China's lack of a unified welfare system or a medical scheme children adds to the problem. Each year, an estimated 10,000 children are abandoned in China, and it’s not just newborns who are left at the so-called “abandon baby islands, says SCMP. They range in age from babies to six-year-olds. Contrary to stereotypes, more boys have been left than girls, the paper says.

China, however, is not alone in this practice. Some nations that do have welfare and more readily equipped medical systems also provide baby hatches. Germany, for example, has over 80 baby hatch facilities—also known as Babyklappen. Switzerland had just one baby hatch serving in the country in 2012, but has recently installed three more, Swiss Info reports. In Switzerland, the biological mother or father can reclaim their child for at least a year, until the point that it is adopted by a new family.

The United Nations, however, has raised concern about the growing number of baby hatches in Europe. According to the Guardian, the U.N. argues that “that baby hatches violate key parts of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) which says children must be able to identify their parents and even if separated from them the state has a ‘duty to respect the child's right to maintain personal relations with his or her parent.’”

Canada, too, has its own version of baby hatches, called baby boxes. Two hospitals in Alberta recently installed baby boxes, CBC News reports, and the country’s first baby box facility opened in 2010, in Vancouver. So far, however, the boxes have largely remained empty. Unlike China, as of May 2013 only one child had ever been left in the original Vancouver baby box. (Read more.)