Safe Surrender laws continue to fail, women still shamed from receiving care

This morning, the staff at the Winston-Salem Planned Parenthood arrived at work to find a suspicious storage container outside the clinic.  Not taking any chances, they phoned police for a security scan.  When police arrived, they found a deceased newborn baby girl inside the storage container.

Planned Parenthood released this statement:

This morning our Planned Parenthood staff found an unidentified storage bin outside the health center and immediately called police. We are fully cooperating with law enforcement as they conduct their investigation. Our hearts and prayers go out to all involved in this tragic situation.

I shutter to think what might have led someone to leave an infant to die outside of a vacant clinic.  But I can imagine.

We live in a climate where women are shamed on just about every reproductive front: shamed for using contraception, shamed for getting pregnant, shamed for choosing abortion, shamed for choosing adoption, and shamed for becoming single mothers. Safe Surrender laws do not adequately remedy the many occurrences of women giving birth in secret and leaving a child to "hopefully be found."

I am not allowing myself to believe that some anti left a dead baby outside of a Planned Parenthood clinic, though it did briefly cross my mind.  I truly believe a frightened woman gave birth and left her daughter near the clinic in hopes that she would be found and cared for.  Or just found and dealt with.  Instances of women giving birth in secret then leaving their children to hopefully be found are not all that rare.  But make no mistakes: instead of demonizing the women who endure the agony of unassisted childbirth and immediate abandonment, we should be demonizing the endless shame cycle that each and every reproductively-capable person experiences on some level, regardless of the choices she makes.

There is no excuse for denying women access to any reproductive health care that she deems right for her. When they feel like they have no choice, many women take drastic measures, often alone and unattended, and the results can be devastating. I find it significant that the mother chose to leave her baby outside of a clinical organization that works tirelessly to combat the epidemic of her situation.  But again, it was sadly too late for her.