Why are Chinese dumping disabled babies?

The BBC reports of a welfare home in Guangzhou where more than 260 children had been left at since 28 January this year.

An official from Guangzhou told the BBC that all of the 260 infants dumped at had illnesses, such as cerebral palsy, Down's syndrome and congenital heart disease.

Abandoning children is illegal in China, but homes like this material one were opened up to give the infants some survival chance compared to them being dumped in the streets.

But why would anyone want to dump a baby? Some people would say the parents are cruel but in my uneducated view, it is Chinese society that is cruel.

With the strict one child policy on one hand and the society looking at the male child as a benefactor in later years of the parents’ life, Chinese society has become one where a healthy male child is the gem.

I have heard stories of mothers aborting their very advanced pregnancies just because the baby in there is a girl.

The BBC speculated that it is thought that many parents abandon ill babies because they fear they cannot afford the medical care required, but more than just bills, it’s the question of society wanting a child to take care of the parents later, and one which expects a child to be some whiz in class, sports and even music.

Reality needs to settle in, some babies are born with defects, and unless there be a law banning disability, society must face up and take the burden.

Big salute to the Chinese families that only had a chance to have one baby and they kept it even after it was a girl or disabled.