As I mentioned on the Older Parent Blog the other day, among the hot-button topics that flare on adoption-related web groups and forums, Baby Safe Havens ... those drop-off points for infants where a mother can leave a child without fear of prosecution ... is a biggee.

Many adoptees hate the whole concept, and Bastard Nation, an organization that fights for adoptee rights, open records and such, takes a very strong stance against baby safe havens.

Others see them as viable and valuable alternatives for mothers to take, and suggest that dumpsters are the option often taken when BSH aren't available.

The debate rages, and it's fierce.

A story out of Germany popped up in the news, and could be taken to being actually about an issue or two related to adoption ... if it wasn't so simply silly.

Titled, "Unhappy German Drunk Puts Himself Up For Adoption", it's all about some moron who stuffed himself into a baby hatch, then passed out, setting off alarms in the unit of the Dortman, Germany hospital that deals with newly abandoned infants, and causing a struggle to extricate his sorry self from something designed for much smaller humans.

The article is written with a "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" apparent:

Dortmund police were unsure as to whether Müller, 28, was actually putting himself up for adoption in an attempt to find himself a loving couple to take care of him or whether he accidentally stumbled into the chute while inebriated. Either way, he found himself a new home all the same -- at least for one night.

The end point, although highlighting the idea that Muller is, "undoubtedly the largest and oldest" baby hatch depositee, states that hundreds of babies in Austria and Germany have entered the social care system through these hatches after "more and more young moms, unable to cope with their newborns, had been abandoning them on the street."

Obviously, this is not an issue of only the developing world.

Alcohol abuse, too.