Last Thursday, a newborn boy was found alive in a box under the stairs of a Kepong apartment block. The next morning, a baby girl was found dead in a rubbish bin at a Bangsar waste site.
Police are investigating the first case under Section 317 of the Penal Code for abandonment of a child, and the second under Section 318 for concealment of birth.
Two babies, found a day and a few kilometres apart. One will grow up as a foundling, the other never got that chance.
I have spent much of my working life between these two outcomes: recovering abandoned babies, sitting with mothers once they are traced, and raising children of my own through adoption.
