This follow-up is for you, Pat, and some others who might be interested to know what happened. You know I'm a person who rather relies on data than on gut feeling when evaluating a scheme. Here are the data. But I'll start with a short summary for the newcomers:

summary: In Hamburg, there is a private organisation supported by public money that tries to prevent baby deaths resulting from them being abandoned by their mothers. They have two schemes:
(1) a 'baby hatch' with a warm bed behind and a silent alarm that allows mothers to give away their newborn and walk away unknown.
(2) A telephone hotline. You phone and somebody comes to any place you want to 'collect' the baby and there are no questions asked.

The data: In 1999, the last year before the scheme, in Hamburg (2.5 Million inhabitants) four newborns have been abandoned by their mothers and two of them have died from exposure.
In 2000, the first year of 'Operation Moses' in Hamburg, no baby has been abandoned. Six newborns, however, have been 'handed over' to the organisation, two of them by the hotline, four of them by the hatch. All six are in good health and foster care.

The project seems to be working.

Wolfgang