Briefing Paper 555 – Safe Relinquishment: Finding Solutions to SA’s Child-Abandonment and Late-Term Abortion Crisis by Lois Law
High levels of crisis pregnancies in South Africa and limited options lead large numbers of desperate girls and women to abandon their babies in unsafe circumstances, or to seek late-term abortions, which often result in the mother’s death, over and above that of the baby. The availability of ‘baby savers’ as a safe relinquishment option would do much to prevent these deaths; yet all forms of child abandonment, including safe relinquishment, remain a criminal offence in South Africa.