Those poor abandoned babies

March 15, 2012 / Opinion

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http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/opinion/article/those-poor-abandoned-babies

MARCH 15 — My heart sinks every time I read another story about a baby found abandoned somewhere in our country. The details never seem to change — a newborn, found in a dumpster. Or in the longkang. Barely alive. Dead. All abandoned, almost always at birth.

Something else never seems to vary in these cases. The mother is usually young. Usually Malay. Always unmarried. As for the father? Almost always absent.

As with the latest case. A newborn baby’s body, found in a pail covered with a cloth. A 22-year-old mother, already arrested. Father currently unknown.

These cases always bring up feelings of revulsion against the mother. Pity for the poor, innocent baby who ends up paying the price of its parents’ indiscretions. If the baby must be abandoned, then why not leave it at a mosque? Somewhere safe, where it can be found and tended?

I too share most of those feelings. Why should the innocent baby have to suffer? Yet at the same time, I pity the mother. Many people out there appear to think that mothers who abandon their newborns are nothing short of monsters. Tak berhati perut.

Maybe so, but I also think about the desperate young woman usually left to fend for herself. The young woman who hides her condition for months, and then reaches the end of her tether when faced with the very real consequence of her actions.

Many mothers will tell you that giving birth can be a traumatic experience, even when you’ve got your husband, doctors and nurses surrounding you. What must it be like for the young unmarried mother who gives birth in secret all by herself?

Yet society continues to censure such women. They deserve to be flogged. Hanging is too good for the likes of them. They will burn in hell. And so on, ad nauseam.

Some think that these problems will be solved if only we were more religious (let’s not forget that a majority of these cases involve Malays). That may be true. If we were all better Muslims then sex would only exist within the boundaries of marriage and all children would be born within wedlock; ergo, baby abandonment cases would not occur.

However, being a realist, I know that this will never happen. Islam or not, we are all flawed humans and there will always be people who have sex outside of marriage. The problem is that this group of people often also includes those who are young or naive, or who have no idea about the consequences of sex.

Last month, our government decided to ban a children’s book about sex. What a pointless gesture. Sex cannot be contained. Sex creates life. Our government — indeed, our society — is not going to win any battle against an act that is, in fact, completely natural.

That doesn’t mean that I advocate free sex all around. Of course not. But we do need to be sensible about sex. I firmly believe that our children need to be taught about sex — and not just the mechanics of the act. Sex education is about health, both physical and emotional.

Our children should learn about the effects sex can have on their bodies — conception and diseases. Our children should learn about self-esteem in relation to sex so that they do not confuse sex with love. Our children should be told that sex can arouse complicated feelings, and should learn how to deal with such things. Our children need to be educated about sex, because, like it or not, religious or not, some of them will experiment with sex at some point in their lives before they get married.

I understand completely that parents do not want that to happen. But be realistic. How many out there can honestly say that they waited for marriage? Sex takes place all the time, and if our children decide to experiment, wouldn’t we want them to do so with knowledge instead of ignorance?

We teach our children road safety awareness. We teach them how to count, how to read, how to write. We teach our children to be wary of strangers. We teach our children all sorts of things to make sure that they are ready for the world.

Yet as a nation and a society we continually fail our children because we do not equip them with vital knowledge about their own bodies. We leave our children to discover these things for themselves, by themselves. Sometimes we’re lucky and nothing untoward happens. Sometimes it ends with a baby; with shame and stigma for the mother. Sometimes it ends with a dead baby and a mother with a destroyed life.

I cannot find it in me to blame the mother when a baby is abandoned. Yes, it is a vile and shocking act; abhorrent. Yes, becoming pregnant outside marriage is wrong in the eyes of so many religions.

The more religious amongst you will argue that sex education will encourage our youngsters to have even more sex. I say, it’s happening anyway. Which is better: a teenager who understands how her body works, or a 20-year-old who thinks you can’t get pregnant the first time you have sex?

And before we all condemn the mother in the latest case, think: if your unmarried daughter found herself pregnant, would she tell you in the hope of getting some support, or would she keep it a secret? If it happened to you, that answer could one day literally mean life or death for one innocent baby.

* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.