RIGHT along with approximately 99.9 per cent of the population, I can’t begin to imagine what the woman who saw fit to abandon her baby in a storm water drain was thinking.

But I am willing to venture a guess about what her newborn son WASN’T thinking — and it almost certainly didn’t involve lofty theories or snap judgments as to his mother’s state of mind.

Hungry, tired, overheated and terrified, the only thing that would have been running through his mind would have been the desperate hope that someone would bundle him into their arms and tend to his needs. And if those arms happen to belong to a well-meaning stranger, rather than to the woman who gave birth to him, then so be it.

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When the life of an innocent baby is at stake the finger-pointing and tut-tutting will just have to wait.

Pontificating about what possesses a person to abandon a helpless baby is of no help to anyone right now — least of all the baby himself. And publicly humiliating any woman who commits such an incredulous act is equally futile. To those of us who couldn’t bear to avert our eyes for even a moment during those often anxious first weeks at home with a baby, it is impossible to fathom how a fellow parent could leave a vulnerable child to fend for themselves.

But this isn’t the first time a newborn has been abandoned, and it won’t be the last.

As tempting as it is to busy ourselves with self-righteous denouncements of women who make such decisions, minimising the danger to any baby who faces a similar fate in future is far more helpful.

As much as it may satisfy our desire for justice in treating abandonment as a criminal offence, in reality the fear of prosecution unwittingly increases the likelihood of a distressed mother leaving a baby in a remote area.

Rather than scare off a woman who is clearly already in a desperate state of mind, the introduction of “safe haven” laws, such as those in place in Europe and the US, offers a less risky alternative.

In decriminalising the act of anonymously surrendering a baby, mothers can leave an unwanted infant in a safe environment, such as a hospital or police station.

Very few of us will ever comprehend how a parent could abandon a baby. But our judgment is of no help to a newborn who simply wants to feel safe and cared for and is only jeopardised by the race to shame their mother.