California has a proposed law that would protect from prosecution parents who abandon their babies in safe places. At first, such a law would appear to condone abandonment. In reality, however, there may be good reasons for it.

Currently, California -- and other states -- tend to find far more dead babies than live ones. It is an ugly concept: Mothers of newborns, in an effort to avoid prosecution, put their babies in trash containers where they die. If California's proposed law succeeds in encouraging frightened women to turn their babies over to hospitals or police stations, where they have a chance for survival, it would be worthwhile.