David Marshall: Abandoned babies and the mother’s emotional health

Getty Images (TriceEdneyWire.com)—During the crack epidemic of the ’80s and ’90s, children exposed to crack cocaine before birth were often referred to as “crack babies.” Crack babies sometimes became boarder babies—babies abandoned at the hospital by parents who could not care for them. For months, hospital nurseries became temporary homes for many babies born to crack users. At the time, some babies would live in hospitals for as long as three years. A federal study found that about 22,000 babies were left in 1991 by parents unwilling or unable to care for them; Washington, D.C. had the third-highest number of any U.S. city. “We called it a crisis because the space was just filling up in the nursery,” said Linda Ivey Lewis, who, as an administrator at D.C. General Hospital, was instrumental in opening the boarder baby nursery, where volunteers could come in to hold the infants. “Worst case for me was for them to not be humanized,” Ivey Lewis said. As we look back, one can easily make the connection between a drug-addicted mother and her abandoned child. Fast forward to 2024, what role will current abortion bans play in driving parents to abandon their babies? In Harris County,...