Child Abandonment... Is It Legal?

Child Abandonment

Child abandonment is the practice of relinquishing interests and claims over one's offspring with the intent of never again resuming or reasserting them. Causes include many social and cultural factors as well as mental illness. An abandoned child is called a foundling (as opposed to a runaway or an orphan).

One of the earliest surviving examples of child abandonment in popular culture is that of Oedipus who is left to die as a baby in the hills by a herdsman ordered to kill the baby, but is found and grows up to unwittingly marry his biological mother.

In many tales, such as Snow White, the child is actually abandoned by a servant who had been given orders to put the child to death.

Children are often abandoned with birth tokens, which act as plot devices to ensure that the child can be identified. In Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, a recognition scene in the final act reveals by these that Perdita is a king's daughter rather than a shepherdess, and so suitable for her prince lover. Similarly, when the heroine of Le Fresne reveals the brocade and the ring she was abandoned with, her mother and sister recognize her; this makes her a suitable bride for the man whose mistress she had been.

The children of Queen Blondine and of her sister, Princess Brunette, picked up by a Corsair after seven days at sea; illustration by Walter Crane to the fairy tale Princess Belle-Etoile

From Oedipus onward, Greek and Roman tales are filled with exposed children who escaped death to be reunited with their families—usually, as in Longus's Daphnis and Chloe, more happily than in Oedipus's case. Grown children, having been taken up by strangers, were usually recognized by tokens that had been left with the exposed baby: in Euripides's Ion, Creüsa is about to kill Ion, believing him to be her husband's illegitimate child, when a priestess reveals the birth-tokens that show that Ion is her own, abandoned infant.

This may reflect the widespread practice of child abandonment in their cultures. On the other hand, the motif is continued through literature where the practice is not widespread. William Shakespeare used the abandonment and discovery of Perdita in The Winter's Tale, and Edmund Spenser reveals in the last Canto of Book 6 of The Faerie Queen that the character Pastorella, raised by shepherds, is in fact of noble birth. Henry Fielding, in one of the first novels, recounted The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling. Ruth Benedict, in studying the Zuni, found that the practice of child abandonment was unknown, but featured heavily in their folktales.

Still, even cultures that do not practice it may reflect older customs; in medieval literature, such as Sir Degaré and Lay le Freine, the child is abandoned immediately after birth, which may reflect pre-Christian practices, both Scandavian and Roman, that the newborn would not be raised without the father's decision to do so.

Fantesy tale's of Child Abandonment are not covered under the legislation of Public Law, and the true injustice and recognition of how corrupted the UK Law Enforcment system is, is proven by Justice Mary Hogg herself, in issuing a Ward of Court on the McCann's daughter Madeleine Beth McCann, that was not proven to be residing in the UK at the time of issuing the order, and could not be proven to have ever existed by mean's of a Birth Certificate and/or Medical Records, plus the fact that the order was illegally issued after an abduction had taken place in another juridsdiction and was also currently undergoing a police investigation by the Portugese Judiciary, which effectively outwayed Justice Mary Hogg's Ward of Court Order!

So WHY did the McCann's apply for a Ward of Court in the UK Law Courts just 12 day's after claiming their daughter Madeleine Beth McCann had been abducted and at the same time aslo trademarked her name as a product when they should have been facing charges of Child Abandonment along with their friends that also abandoned their children in the Ocean Club Complex folowing a Mark Warner warning regarding leaving their children unnatended by an adult anywhere in the complex!

The McCann's have only proved to the rest of the world how corrupted the UK Government, Legal System, Social Services and Law enforcement system paid for by the Public Taxpayer really is!