Don't Throw Away the Future

The other night, I was watching the TV news here in New York and a story came on about a newborn baby who survived being dropped 8 stories down a trash chute. The building's custodian had gone to clear a jam that was preventing the trash compacter from working properly and he heard what he thought was a kitten and he found the baby boy that his 18 year old mother had thrown away. According to the report I'd heard on TV, the janitor was deeply shaken by the thought that this child was nearly crushed to death and only a trash jam and another tenant's complaint about the trash problem had saved him. Had he not heard the baby's cry, he would have flipped the switch and killed that child without even knowing. That part wasn't mentioned in any print report that I could find, but you can read the AP article about it HERE. This didn't have to happen, not when we have safe haven laws in 49 out of our 50 states including New York! That young mother, in either fear, ignorance, disregard for the humanity of her child or some combination of the three, chose to throw away her baby, and also her own life in doing so. Unfortunately, this is becoming a common occurrence - another consequence of the culture of death and symptom of the sickness in our society that devalues human life and sees inconvenient people (like unwanted pregnancies, the sick, elderly, and disabled) as "disposable".