A digg story about a drunken German man who ended up in a hospital maternity ward tipped me off to this. The drunk’s situation is hilarious but it informed me of the existence of “baby boxes” in Europe.

Hundreds of babies have been deposited in the boxes, set up across Germany and Austria, since the scheme started five years ago.

It came into effect after more and more young mothers, unable to cope with their newborns and afraid of dealing with officials, had been abandoning them on the street. The baby boxes offered a no-questions-asked alternative.

Apparently they put these “boxes” at the hospital where mothers can drop off unwanted babies. Its pretty horrible that such a thing has to exist but if it prevents stuff like this from happening then hey, I’m all for it. (That’s a link to a video of a Family Guy clip, if you were worried it might be something gross.)