Legal Transfer of French Traditions? German and Austrian Initiatives to Introduce Anonymous Birth

Abstract

When anonymous birth, baby boxes or baby nests were proposed in Switzerland, Austria and Germany, those who defined the social problem in terms of panicking young mothers in distress pushed the legislatures to introduce legal anonymous birth. In Austria, they succeeded. Similar initiatives failed in Germany, but baby boxes or baby nests have been instituted nevertheless. In contrast to practices in France, anonymous birth contradicts the German legal tradition that focuses on biological descent as evidence in case of children born out of wedlock. Partisans of anonymous birth aim at preventing infanticide and child abandonment especially by mothers of minor age. However, socio-legal research reveals that the reasons for abandonment and infanticide are indistinct. The recent legal arrangements of the legitimate alternatives, abortion and adoption, are presumed to impose demands on rationality that young women, over-represented in neonaticide cases and, in France, in cases of non-recognition, cannot cope with. The ideological pro-life mix concerning anonymous birth is favoured by Protestant, Catholic, social and state welfare agencies whose purposes include ruling out the conflicting rights of the respective parties (adoptive children and biological parents) and procuring adoptable children.

Ambivalence toward mothers who kill: An examination of 45 U.S. cases of maternal neonaticide

“…The mother may remain anonymous and is protected from prosecution. These laws appear to operate under society's presumption that women who commit neonaticide and women who take advantage of established prevention programs are relatively the same (Willenbacher, 2004). Despite the development of these prevention programs, however, it remains unclear within the literature whether a woman's reasons for choosing abandonment versus neonaticide are similar.…”

“…Safe haven laws require a level of rationality often missing in neonaticide offenders (Willenbacher, 2004). Meyer et al (2001) have argued that neonaticide offenders are not able to remain calm enough to consider dropping off the newborn at a designated safe place, because they give birth and murder the newborn in a state of panic and fear.…”

Family Foster Care, Kinship Networks, and Residential Care of Abandoned Infants in Egypt

“…French law permits anonymous and cost-free delivery for women choosing to voluntarily relinquish their newborns at the time of birth. In 1966, a law was passed that clearly stipulated, for the benefit of the child, that this situation irrevocably breaks the link with the birth family before putting the child into the hands of their adoptive parents (Willenbacher, 2004).…”