(2 July) A male newborn
baby, with umbilical cord still intact, has been found floating in a canal at Soi Pracha Uthit 107,
Bangkok.
The person who discovered the baby said at first she thought it was a doll. When she
realized it was a baby boy, she said, she and her neighbors scrambled to rescue him from the canal
and brought him to the hospital.
The baby’s condition was described as critical due to many
hours partially drowned in the canal, and his chance of survival was said to be
50-50.
Police officers believe the baby was left to die by his parents, adding that locals
told them they heard a motorcycle passing through the vicinity around 04.00-05.00 this
morning.
News of infants abandoned by their parents is routine incidents in Thailand, and the
case mostly involved young, teen couples who had unwanted pregnancy. Recently, some news agencies
also reported that Thailand’s teenage pregnancy rate is the highest in Southeast Asia.
Yet,
abortion remains illegal in Thailand except for medical reasons, and activists struggle to convince
the mostly-conservative Thai society to be more open toward birth-control methods such as
contraceptives and condoms.
