In an effort to keep mothers from abandoning their babies in the streets, Madrid is implementing a new system aimed at allowing these mothers to easily — and anonymously — give up babies for adoption. Women who cannot or do not want to care for their newborn children now have the option of calling a three digit number (to be revealed in the coming week), alerting an emergency dispatch team to pick up the baby at a location designated by the mother. In an effort to dissuade any fear or trepidation on the caller’s part, Spain’s Department of Family and Social Services ensures that the mother’s identity, including age and nationality, will remain completely anonymous.

Survey information suggests that many of the babies abandoned in Spanish streets are left by mothers who happen to be immigrants and who, often enough, did not inform family members that they had gotten pregnant.

Under this new system, this special method of “child abandonment” will not be considered a crime. Usually, such an act is punishable in Spain by one to two years in prison. Engracia Hidalgo of the Family and Social Services assures these mothers that they will not be penalized should they choose to make us of this system:

“The most important thing for these women to know is that they are not committing a crime by giving their children up for adoption, no one is going to come after them, no one is going to deport them.”

Officials hope that this new service will also help families seeking adoption to be connected with babies who are in need of parents to care for them. Currently, there are about Spanish 2,500 families seeking to adopt children within the newborn to three-year-old age range. Connecting such families with the approximately 70 babies abandoned by their mothers in local hospital each year, or the other children and infants left behind elsewhere, can ensure that baby and family both have a happy ending to their stories.

La Comunidad de Madrid irá a recoger a domicilio a los bebés abandonados [20 minutos]