Shocking news from Kyodo:

A hospital in the city of Kumamoto plans to set up a baby hatch where parents can anonymously leave their babies they cannot take care of for varied reasons.

Jikei Hospital says it will begin the work to install the hatch as soon as it obtains permission from local public health authorities and that it wants to set it up by the year-end.

A baby hatch has already been introduced in places such as Germany, where it is known as a Babyklappe or Babyfenster in German and a Jikei Hospital official visited to learn about it.

This will be the first such facility in Japan, according to the Kumamoto hospital. Some institutions in Okayama and Fukuoka prefectures are also eyeing similar initiatives. In Germany, these hatches are usually set up at hospitals or social centers.

Jikei Hospital says its baby hatch, to be named after cradle of storks, will be a box-type one accessible from outside the hospital by opening a window. The box is conditioned inside the same as an incubator. When a newborn is deposited, an alarm will be triggered later.

The hospital plans to introduce the babies put in the hatch for adoption, through the local administration, by among some 160 couples from across the country who have registered with the Okayama Prefectural Medical Association.

The hospital will also leave in the box leaflets informing the parents how to claim their children if they had second thoughts.

Hospital director Shoichi Hasuda says the baby hatch “is an emergency measure and is not aimed at encouraging parents to abandon babies.” Hasuda says he wants to “see a reduction in the number of abandoned newborns and unhappy abortions as much as possible.”

Kumamoto prefectural police said they will make a judgment based on law and evidence on each case of a baby abandoned if it constitutes a crime.

I had never heard of such a system until I read this article, but apparently the system seems to be functioning without major problems in Germany (pictures aplenty at German sites such as this one). But is this system, which some in the Japanese press have dubbed the “baby post,” actually legal? The Asahi Shinbun examines the question further:

The hospital explained its plans to the Kumamoto prefectural government, the Kumamoto city government, local police and other organizations concerned. None of them expressed opposition.

One question raised was whether the system would encourage the abandonment of a baby, a crime punishable by up to five years in prison.

An official of the Kumamoto prefectural police said that placing an infant in the baby box would not constitute abandonment of a baby because the box is under the control of a hospital.

About the only legal issue specified so far is that the hospital will have to submit a report to a municipal health center about changing the structure of the facility for the hole in the wall.

But the central government is not so sure that things are that simple, at least from a legal standpoint.

The Criminal Affairs Bureau of the Justice Ministry declined to comment on the legality of the hospital’s plan.

“It should be judged based on the evidence of each case,” a bureau official said.

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare also would not comment.

“As there are no precedents, I don’t know which section is in charge of the issue,” an official said.

Is it really a good idea to allow for anonymous baby dumping? I’m not really sure on that one. On the one hand, it’s a pretty sad thing for a kid to be anonymously “dropped off” at a hospital. However, on the other hand, it’s probably better for a baby to be raised by adults who want a child, regardless of their DNA-linkage. One could also say that the introduction of the Baby Post could reduce abortions and increase the number of babies in Japan, which could be seen as a positive step in the battle against declining population. Will this system spread through Japan, or can we expect a backlash once enough people become aware of it?

[For more information on this practice, which dates back to medieval Europe, check out the Baby Hatch wikipedia entry.]