Hospitals overreacted

It wasn’t enough for people to be afraid of the infinitesimally small odds of their child being abducted, but now we’re so scared of anything ever happening to anyone that area hospitals won’t even release birth information to papers?

The obituaries remind us of those who have passed, and the births section reminds us that life goes on and the world will continue. It’s nice to know that, even if you never do anything newsworthy in your life, your birth will be recorded and your death will be recorded. It’s good for everyone to at least have some acknowledgement from the world that you existed.

And why get rid of this? Why not try actually protecting the children within the hospital instead of relying on something as ineffective as noninformation? I doubt people who steal babies are reading the paper to find out when to go; there are children born every day in most urban hospitals. Why not publish the information after the mother and child have gone home from the hospital? Childbirth is one of the most important things in the human experience, and it needs to be acknowledged.

Brian Beaudry

Spokane