Speaking as someone who actually lives over here and knows the culture...
onion wrote:
It's deffinitely a completely japanese idea
Yes, because the equivalent acts of anonymously dropping off babies and even older children on the steps of orphanages, churches and other places that are known to take them in and look after them
never happened in the West. Also, please note that the hospital in question is a Christian hospital (i.e., run by or affiliated with a Western church).
bellofthedamned wrote:
Drop-off boxes for babies? What's next -- an overnight deposit for your elderly relatives you just can't look after?
Hm... you might want to see what you can find on the subject of "Obasute-yama" (literally: "grandmother-discard-mountain").*
Oh, wait- damn... Sparta.
Looks like the West beat Japan to that, too.
* This is from a few hundred years ago, and is of course no longer practiced today, but given Japan's severely aging population and low birth rate, barring mass immigration (heh) or import of elderly care staff, you never know...bellofthedamned wrote:
I'm mostly against this, and I sincerely hope the Japanese people will find their sense of moral outrage and put a stop to it. Implement some probably needless parental policing programs, have drop-in visits on new parents to make sure they can handle, have whatever stops you from having a baby drop-box.
Absolutely, because abandonment and other forms of parental irresponsibility and abuse happen
so much less in the West.
Seriously, where do people get off subjectively ragging about "moral outrages" in other countries when similar or worse things are happening in their own?
*sigh*
Sarcasm aside, I am against the abandonment of older children such as the toddler in the story, and think that the father/family should be found and at the very least receive counseling, if not punishment. However, I have mixed feelings about the box itself, since it has both the potential for abuse and also the potential to save lives. (Just like so many things in this little world of ours) I would probably have to say I lean in favor of it since given the culture and the people, it will probably be used more responsibly and sparingly than in just about any other country in the world. At any rate, it is a solely Japanese issue, and you can rest assured that the Japanese people and media are scrutinizing and debating it in enough depth that there is really no need for proxy soul-searching by holier-than-thou foreigners.