Baby boxes in Florida

[MillCreek]

https://apnews.com/article/baby-boxes-florida-7a6dd3598f9c8a37be5c913572abdd62  This is the first I had heard of a debate on baby boxes.  Washington does not have baby boxes, but provides for being able to hand your baby to a person at the emergency department, fire station or rural health clinic (https://www.dcyf.wa.gov/safety/safety-newborn-law).  It has really cut down on newborns being abandoned in the trash or outside.  We would all want our children to be born into loving homes with loving parents, but I would prefer a baby box as an alternative to abandonment.

When my wife and I were in Europe last year, the tour guides showed us a couple of churches that had a turntable built into the wall. You could anonymously put your baby on the turntable, turn it and then ring a bell and that would signal to the people inside to come check the turntable.

[MechAg94]

I recall hearing the Houston Fire Dept does that.  I don't know if they still do.

[dogmush]

It seems like this will probably pass, and all the kerfuffle is just a couple folks in a nonprofit?

[Big Hairy Bee]

I think those have been in AZ (metro Phoenix?) for years at firestations.

[K Frame]

"When my wife and I were in Europe last year, the tour guides showed us a couple of churches that had a turntable built into the wall. You could anonymously put your baby on the turntable, turn it and then ring a bell and that would signal to the people inside to come check the turntable. "

That scenario showed up on an episode of MASH in the 1970s. Convent, turntable, bell, whole scenario.

[MillCreek]

^^^Wow.  The churches we saw were built in the Middle Ages so the concept has been around for a while.

[K Frame]

Yep. IIRC, the story line was an unwed Korean mother came into the 4077 with a mixed-race baby. Can't remember if she abandoned the baby or not.

Apparently the Koreans were extremely... not accepting... of mixed race children. Father Mulcahey says that mixed-race Korean children were generally ostracized, the girls sometimes killed, the boys often emasculated.

They ended up taking the baby to a Catholic convent...

Ah, here we go. The episode synopsis.

https://mash.fandom.com/wiki/Yessir,_That%E2%80%99s_Our_Baby_(TV_series_episode)

[Kingcreek]

I shot trap with a young man (19 or 20 years old) that was the first in Illinois program for abandoned infants and I know his adoptive parents. So it’s been here for that long.