Editing Child abandonment (section)

==History==
Historically, many cultures practiced abandonment of infants, often called "[[infant exposure]]." Children were left on hillsides, in the wilderness, near churches, and in other public places. If taken up by others, the children might join another family either as slaves or as free family members. Roman societies, in particular, chose slaves to raise their children rather than family members, who were often indifferent towards their children.<ref name=":02">{{Cite book|title=The Child: An Encyclopedic Companion|last=Schweder|first=Richard|publisher=University of Chicago Press|year=2009|isbn=978-0226475394|pages=1–3}}</ref> Although being found by others would allow children who were abandoned to often survive, exposure is sometimes compared to [[infanticide]]—as described by [[Tertullian]] in his ''Apology'': "it is certainly the more cruel way to kill... by exposure to cold and hunger and dogs." Despite the comparison, other sources report that infanticide and exposure were viewed as morally different in ancient times.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Boswell|first=John Eastburn|date=1984|title=Expositio and Oblatio: The Abandonment of Children and the Ancient and Medieval Family|jstor=1855916|journal=The American Historical Review|volume=89|issue=1|pages=10–33|doi=10.2307/1855916|pmid=11611460}}</ref>

In the [[Early Middle Ages]], parents who did not want to raise their children gave them to monasteries with a small fee, an act known as oblation, and in times of social stress, monasteries often received large numbers of children. By the high Middle Ages, oblation was less common and more often arranged privately between the monastery and the parents of the child. Sometimes, medieval hospitals cared for abandoned children at the community's expense. Still, some refused to do so because being willing to accept abandoned children would increase abandonment rates.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=E.|first=Lester, Anne|date=2007|title=Lost but not yet Found: Medieval Foundlings and their Care in Northern France, 1200–1500|url=https://quod.lib.umich.edu/w/wsfh/0642292.0035.001/--lost-but-not-yet-found-medieval-foundlings-and-their-care?rgn=main;view=fulltext|journal=Proceedings of the Western Society for French History|language=en|volume=35|issn=2573-5012}}</ref> Medieval laws in [[Europe]] governing child abandonment, as the [[Visigothic Code]], often prescribed that the person who had taken up the child was entitled to the child's service as a slave.<ref>[http://libro.uca.edu/vcode/vg4-4.htm The Visigothic Code: (Forum judicum), Book IV: Concerning Natural Lineage Title IV: Concerning Foundlings]</ref> Conscripting or enslaving children into armies and labor pools often occurred as a consequence of war or pestilence when many children were left parentless. Abandoned children then became the wards of the state, military organization, or religious group. When this practice happened en masse, it had the advantage of ensuring the strength and continuity of cultural and religious practices in medieval society.<ref>Judith and Martin Land, ''Adoption Detective: Memoir of an Adopted Child'', Wheatmark Publishing, 2011, p. ix</ref>

[[Early Modern]] Europe saw the rise of foundling homes and increased abandonment of children to these homes. These numbers continued to rise and peaked when 5% of all births resulted in abandonment in France around 1830. The national reaction to this was to limit the resources provided by foundling homes and switch to foster homes instead such that fewer children would die within overcrowded foundling homes during infancy. As access to contraception increased and economic conditions improved in Europe towards the end of the 19th century, the number of children being abandoned declined.<ref name=":02"/>

Abandonment increased towards the end of the 19th century, particularly in the United States. The largest migration of abandoned children in history occurred in the United States between 1853 and 1929. Over one hundred and twenty thousand orphans (not all of whom were intentionally abandoned) were shipped west on railroad cars, where families agreed to foster the children in exchange for their use as farmhands, household workers, etc.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.childrensaidnyc.org/about/orphan-train-movement|title=The Orphan Train Movement |publisher= Children's Aid|website=www.childrensaidnyc.org|language=en|access-date=2018-03-08}}</ref> [[Orphan trains]] were highly popular as a source of free labor. The sheer size of the displacement and the complications and exploitation that occurred gave rise to new agencies and a series of laws that promoted adoption rather than indenture.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/horizon/nov98/orphan.htm|title=Washingtonpost.com: Horizon Section|website=www.washingtonpost.com|access-date=2018-02-23}}</ref> By 1945, adoption was formulated as a legal act with consideration of the child's best interests. The origin of the move toward secrecy and the sealing of all adoption and birth records began when [[Charles Loring Brace]] introduced the concept to prevent children from the orphan trains from returning to or being reclaimed by their parents.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Philanthropy in America : a comprehensive historical encyclopedia|date=2004|publisher=ABC-CLIO|others=Burlingame, Dwight|isbn=978-1576078600|location=Santa Barbara, CA|oclc=56747800|url=https://archive.org/details/philanthropyinam00sant}}</ref>

Notable contemporary instances of child abandonment include homicidal neglect by confinement of infants or children, such as in the affair of the [[Osaka child abandonment case]] or the affair of two abandoned children in [[Calgary, Alberta, Canada]] by their mother [[Rie Fujii]].