ABANDONED INFANCY. — I. a. is synonymous with infancy in abandonment (from Old French abandon, at the mercy and discretion of others). This category includes children incapable of providing for themselves and left to their own devices by those who have custody of them and are obliged to care for them. The abandonment spoken of here is not that undertaken with the deliberate purpose of harming the child, but in order to escape the concerns or burdens of care or custody, severing all traces of the fact created by the existence of an infant. The terms encountered in this connection are two: abandonment and exposure of offspring (v. ESPOSTI). In the history of the problem they sometimes have the same meaning and sometimes do not, depending on the different historical periods and social conditions.
The Romans, as the sources attest (unlike the Greeks), used the word exponere to designate the act of abandonment, whether because the newborn might die or because someone might take it in and thus save II.
In the Middle Ages and even later, especially in scholarly treatises, we encounter the concept of exposure in its twofold meaning, as among the Romans.
Beginning at a certain period, under the influence of historical developments, the most important of which was the establishment and growth of special assistance institutions, the foundling hospitals (v.), a distinction began to be made between exposure
and abandonment of offspring. In the modern world, following the reform of charitable institutions in the field of a. i., the two concepts underwent further clarification.
Today, exposure means entrusting offspring to a foundling hospital. Abandonment of an infant, on the other hand, means the act by which parents abandon a child either with an evil purpose or simply with the intention of entrusting it to public charity. These are therefore two distinct problems; for whereas exposure is legally, though not morally, permissible, the abandonment of an infant is considered a crime by all modern legislations. In practice, moreover, even those found in a state of actual abandonment, if investigations do not lead to the discovery of the person who abandoned them, are placed in a foundling hospital and treated as exposed children.
The canon-civil laws preceding the creation of the modern Codes dealt with a. i. and imposed penalties on those guilty of this crime. A decree of Gregory IX (de infantibus et languidis expositis) permanently deprived of patria potestas parents who abandoned a child. In judicial practice severe criminal sanctions were applied to those guilty of abandoning an infant, even when the act was committed without criminal intent.
The penalty could extend to death if the child died; in other cases lesser penalties were applied (cf. A. Bossius, Tractatus varii qui omnem fere criminalem materiam pertractant, Venice 1612, pp. 106–107). At present, in some countries the criminal law concerning a. i. is general in character: thus in Poland, where cases of abandoning people (and therefore also children) in an abnormal or unconscious state are considered generically (art. 200). Other legislations deal more specifically with the case of parents who abandon their offspring (Swiss Penal Code, art. 219).
Russian legislation is, in this regard, laconic in its simplicity, but imprecise (art. 158). In many other nations, a distinction is made between abandonment by persons entrusted with the child’s custody and abandonment by the parents, with a more severe penalty established in the latter case: thus, for example, in Germany (art. 221) and in France, where, among other things, a distinction is made between abandonment in a frequented place and abandonment in an unfrequented place (arts. 349–352); the Netherlands follows French legislation in this field (arts. 256–259). The country whose legislation is most detailed in this regard is Austria, where all the circumstances of the individual cases are taken into consideration (arts. 149–152).
Italian legislation is very clear and specific on this matter, covering both the general case of abandoning a minor under fourteen or an incapacitated person (art. 591) and the specific case of abandoning an infant for reasons of honor. “Anyone who abandons a newborn immediately after birth in order to save his own honor or that of a close relative is punished by imprisonment for three months to one year. The punishment is imprisonment for six months to two years if the act results in personal injury, and from two to five years if it results in the death of the newborn” (art. 592). Without the mitigating circumstance of honor, the penalty is six months to five years where there is no personal injury; one to six years where there is personal injury; and three to eight years where it results in death.
But abandonment of infancy was condemned by the Christian conscience before it was condemned by the penal codes.
The father of the Greco-Roman family was the absolute master, and he was permitted to abandon his children to death or to the charity of others (the mother could do so with illegitimate children). The great thinkers of the Greco-Roman world themselves admitted the permissibility of abandoning infants and defended it on grounds of social or political utility (cf. Plato, De republica, VIII, 459; Aristotle, Politica, VII, 17, 10). The Fathers of the Church vigorously opposed the practice and the justifications offered by pagan philosophers, and condemned abandonment because of the danger to the child’s life, deprived as it was of the natural and indispensable assistance necessary to continue living, and because of the evidently unnatural severing of the bonds existing between parents and children, including illegitimate children (cf. s. Giustino, I Apol., 27: PG, 6, 370; Atenagora, Legatio, 35: PG 6, 970; Tertulliano, Apol., 9: CSEL, 69, p. 26; id., Ad nationes, I, 16: ibid., XX, p. 87; Minucio Felice, Octavius, 30–31: ibid., II, pp. 43–44; Clemente Al., Paedag., 3: PG, 8, 585).
Actual abandonment of offspring is therefore a grave fault, even apart from danger to its life; for this reason it was prosecuted from the earliest Christian period also by conciliar legislation (Council of Vaison [442], can. 9 in Mansi, VI, col. 455; Second Council of Arles [452], can. 51, ibid., VII, col. 884; Council of Adge, can. 24, ibid., VIII, col. 329).
Can the moral judgment of condemnation, clear when the case concerns actual abandonment of infancy, currently be repeated with regard to the special case of a. i. known as exposure? For historical and social reasons, foremost among them the very existence of foundling hospitals, moralists admitted, in certain cases, the permissibility of abandoning infants in such institutions for reasons of a social or individual nature, especially in cases of illegitimate birth. But in themselves the principles of Christian morality also condemn the exposure of offspring to a foundling hospital. It is parents (v.) to acknowledge and, if possible, raise their children themselves, including illegitimate children, unless their presence would eliminate or disturb goods of a higher order than those to which the child has a right, namely the integrity of the family or the protection of the social order. Motives of a merely personal or contingent nature cannot justify abandonment of offspring before one’s conscience. Even in the presence of motives of a higher order, it is never permissible to resort to simple abandonment, at least under the present conditions of society. At most, one may resort to exposure, although even on this point theological thinking is now tending toward greater severity.
But besides the crime of directly abandoning the little child, there are today, especially, other causes that have created and continue to create throngs of abandoned children. It is no longer the perverse will of the parents or of those responsible for their care that leaves children, who are still unable to fend for themselves, materially and morally at their own mercy: they are causes of force majeure, such as war events, voluntary and forced migrations, and the absolute loss of every relative. More often, if material abandonment is not complete, moral abandonment is complete or nearly so.
The Catholic Church, which, as has been seen, has always been so sensitive to the phenomenon of abandoned children since antiquity, and is so visibly so in mission territories (v. S. INFANZIA and cf. Instructio ad tuendam puerorum matrumque vitam in locis missionum, 11 Feb. 1936, in AAS, 28 [1936], pp. 208 ff), also in our countries of ancient civilization, faced with the recent spectacle of abandoned children, enormously extended by the war and the postwar period, besides devoting itself through the charitable work of its children, wished to intervene with a new solemn document, the encyclical Quemadmodum, 6 Jan. 1946, for the moral and material assistance of indigent and abandoned children. The encyclical is one long heartfelt exhortation “to support through prayer, collaboration, and offerings... the activities established to assist morally and materially indigent and abandoned children” (cf. the Italian translation, in Il monitore ecclesiastico, 71 [1946], pp. 14–27).