How prevalent is baby abandonment in the United States?
Unfortunately no one really knows. All states and/or counties are not uniformly maintaining data. The federal government does not have a formal data gathering process for this specific information. • Why is this issue of growing national concern? Abandoned children have always been a concern in this country and states have criminal as well as child abuse laws to address it. The growing concern seems to stem from a realization that despite the existing legal framework, babies are being abandoned, harmed and sometimes dying as a result. The State of Texas experienced an unprecedented rash of baby abandonment in 1999. 13 babies were abandoned in the first 10 months of 1999. The string of abandonments garnered significant media and political attention. • Is baby abandonment illegal? State laws vary, however, all states have laws that prohibit leaving a baby unprotected and unsupervised. • What is known about the abandoned babies and the persons responsible for the abandonment? Little is kn
