One of my hot-button topics

"Parents sometimes feel so overwhelmed at the stygma and discrimination faced by their disabled children, they just can't cope."

That's a direct quote from my local newspaper, which ran a story today about an elderly couple in China who have adopted a total of 42 abandoned children in the last 20 years. It is offered as a reason why people would abandon their children. In the same section is a story about a newborn baby boy, abandoned in a gully a five-minute walk from an upscale suburban neighbourhood in a town a half-hour's drive from here. He'd been dead about a week when a woman and her dog found his body.

Now, I have some sympathy for the parents in this situation, especially if the baby is a newborn and the mother is suffering post-partum depression. I know how overwhelming it can be, even when the baby is healthy and wanted.

But I've seen statements like this in all kinds of situations, given as reasons - excuses? - for just about any form of abandonment or abuse. I've even seen this as a reason why Canadian parents gave up a disabled child for adoption.

It never fails to make my blood boil. I might be able to admit that putting the child up for adoption is better than keeping him if you feel that way. I might be able to accept that in the end, it's your decision. But I will always wonder why on earth you had kids, if you didn't have enough love to be with them when they most needed you.

I will never be able to understand how someone could abandon their child.