Baby Catherine
+ Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney
20 May 2007
On Mother's Day a little baby girl was left outside Dandenong hospital in Melbourne just hours after being born.
The Daily Telegraph ran the story on Tuesday under the headline "How Could She? The Poor Little Baby Dumped by her Mother". A storm promptly broke over the newspaper for what former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett described as an unprofessional and socially irresponsible headline.
Prime Minister Howard defended the newspaper for expressing the natural shock of most people at the thought of a mother abandoning her baby.
The editors of the Telegraph also responded, asking whether political correctness now bans the expression of dismay at sad stories like Baby Catherine's.
It is not an unreasonable question, and it raises others which point to how muddled we have become in thinking about pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood, especially when the woman is faced with serious problems.
Everyone with any human feeling is shocked to see a baby abandoned by its mother, but where was the father? Our hearts immediately go out to this little person, and we wonder what could have driven her mother to make this decision.
Was she afraid of her partner’s reaction, or the reaction of her parents if she is a teenager? Was she making a decision to protect Catherine from violence or abuse at home? Perhaps she was sick, or scared that caring for a baby would mean she would lose her job or be unable to finish her education.
At this stage we don't know the answers to these questions. It is likely that Catherine’s mother feels utterly alone and unsupported, and unable to ask anybody for help.
Help is there for this poor woman, but despite the best intentions of all the services involved she is unlikely to access it while people with information are being asked to call the police!
We should also remember that there are other things Catherine's mother could have done.
She could have abandoned Catherine in the rubbish rather than at a hospital. And as some people would be quick to tell her, she could have had an abortion and avoided all the fuss. No newspaper in the world would ask "How Could She" if she chose that course.
It’s strange that we think abortion is a help to women facing hardship, violence or abuse when it does nothing to solve these problems, and leaves the woman to confront them alone and further weakened by regret and heartbreak.
But Catherine's mother did not chose death for her baby. We should thank her for this much and do all we can to help her and Catherine.
What we have is a frightened woman’s decision to hand over her baby, hoping she will be better off. There are worse and better choices than this.
