Kirk here with some news on Jikei Hospital’s continuing efforts to prevent tragic cases of infant abandonment. It you are unfamiliar with the background of Jikei Hospital’s “baby hatch” (the only such system in Japan), please see the following article:
https://metropolisjapan.com/the-controversy-of-japans-baby-hatch/
To understand the background of the latest news, it might be best to start with this quote that comes toward the end of the Asahi article:
“In December last year, a teenage girl gave birth at the hospital, after telling it that she wanted to give birth anonymously. She was released from the hospital after disclosing her identity to a staff member and preparing a document for a special adoption, on the promise that her baby would be registered without her name listed.”
The decision made by Kumamoto’s city government was occasioned by this baby’s birth and the decision of the mother not to acknowledge the birth publicly.
