In our society today, people of every age have problems that they need to deal with. Some problem for one age may differ from the problem of another age, or they may be just the same. High school students especially are facing so many problems. The five biggest problems that high school students facing these days are, illegal racing, using drugs and alcohol abuse, having free sex, abortion and dumping baby. The problems usually follow the flow, first is illegal racing, commonly it being held at night, and of course it gives troubles to other road users.
Apart from that, it also can be deadly for that person. After having a race, usually they will headed to the night club. This is the place where they start to take drugs and become addicted to alcohol. When they are under the influence of drugs and alcohol, it will lead them to have an unprotected sex, which means having sex without taking any prevention for pregnancy. High school students are too immature to fully understand the effects of free sex could have on their lives. So there is no doubt that another problem will be created because of that.
For sure the problem is abortion and baby dumping. Panic of being pregnant unexpectedly, they take a risk to abort the baby before their family aware of the physical changes later on. Abortion is a risky action which can be fatal to the mother. But being in desperate situation like this, they cannot think rationally anymore. But not all of them are having enough gut to take the risk for abortion. Some of them decided to give birth to the baby, but then at the end of it, because of some reasons, they dump the baby without hesitate.
Dump the baby means that they throw away the babies at any places without taking care of it later. Usually the babies were dump just after they were born. In most of the cases, the babies were already dead when they were found by someone else. The trend of dumping a baby is quite the same for most of the cases. Usually for most of the cases, the baby was covered with clothes and plastic bag and being left in the bushes, near the rubbish dump or in front of the mosque. The worst case is when the baby was throw in a river or being burn.
This case does exist in our country, but only a few cases recorded until now. One of the common trend of baby dumping case this year can be read through The News Strait Times, April 11, The Malaysian National News Agency reported as follows, Kuala Lumpur, – The body of a baby boy, with the umbilical cord still intact, was found at a garbage dump in Sungai Choh, Hulu Selangor. Hulu Selangor police chief Supt Norel Azmi Yahya Affandi, when contacted, said the body was found by Hulu Selangor District Council (MDHS) workers who were collecting garbage in the area about 8am. The district council workers were lifting the pile of rubbish into the garbage truck when a plastic bag with a newspaper package inside slipped and fell. One of the workers bent down to pick it up and was shocked to see a baby’s leg protruding from the newspaper package,” he added. He said the worker lodged a police report and the body was sent to the Kuala Kubu Baru Hospital for a post-mortem. Police did not rule out the possibility of the baby, which was believed to have died during delivery, was placed at the garbage dump site late last night. From this news, we must be aware that baby dumping is the most serious case nowadays.
This case appears almost every day on news and in the newspapers. We can see that these cases are increasing from time to time. According to the statistics of baby dumping cases in Malaysia issued by the Headquarters of the Royal Malaysia Police (PDRM), Bukit Aman, in 2000, a total of 65 cases of baby dumping have been reported and the total number increase to 86 cases reported in 2006 throughout the country. This serious case becomes more popular among teenagers in Malaysia is probably because of these few factors, which are unwanted pregnancies, men irresponsibility, sickness, poverty, scolding by parents, and broken marriages.
Unwanted pregnancies have been one of the major causes of baby dumping, as most of these young ladies are not prepared to take care of the baby plus the changes that take place with the body and lack of life skills. In the eight studies reported by Gerald R. Adams and Thomas Gullota: Most of the time a teenage pregnancy is an accident. Many teenagers are simply ignorant about sexual matters and believe such myths as “you can’t get pregnant the first time” or “you won’t get pregnant if you only have sex in a while”.
Teenagers are also influenced by parents and religious leaders who tell them to abstain not only from having sex but from using birth control as well. While birth control requires planning and forethought, it is easy to be swept into an unplanned sexual encounter in the heat of passion. Moreover, some teenage girls feel that planning a sexual encounter is immoral, finally teenagers often do not know how to get birth control devices or are afraid that their parents will get angry if they do.
Men irresponsibility also contributes to the women’s decision to dump the baby. Men often refuse to take the responsibility when they were claimed to be the father of the baby. There are cases where the man himself had asked for the baby to be aborted or dumped. Apart from that, some women dumped their baby out of sickness, such as mental problems, confusion, and epilepsy acquired during pregnancy. Psychologists tend to picture baby dumper as people who are mentally ill or at least have severe emotional problems. The typical baby dumper is described as impulsive, immature and depressed, with little control over his or her emotions. Having economic hardship also leading to baby dumping.
Teenagers who are still studying for instance cannot afford to raise a baby on their own and for those who comes from a poor family, even their parents cannot help the situation. Afraid of being scolded by their parents because of pregnant before married is also the reason why they dumped the baby. David G. Gil’s found that: The usual indicator of social class-income, occupation prestige and education are all negatively related to baby dumping. In other words, the lower the parents’s social and economic status, the more they tended to dump their baby.
Last but not least is because of broken marriages. Believe it or not, even the one who had married also dumped their baby. This is happen especially when the couple had a problem to get along well with each other. Always argue and hard to tolerate to each other finally resulted in baby dumping. In one of the most comprehensive studies of family violence to date, Murray A. Straus, Richard J. Gelles and Suzanne K. Steinmets found that: About a quarter of the husband and wives they interviewed admitted that there had been violence between them at some time in their marriage.
