This should work. Healthcare should be a free, no-questions-asked (within reason, obvio) service available to anyone at any time, regardless of who/ what they are.

To add a note given our own experience, labor and delivery depts tend to be on pretty heavy security around here. We're talking wrist bands for everyone, locked and monitored entries, etc., because people kidnap babies (usually fathers w/o custody or have ill intent). Plus, mistaken indenties happen so you get a matching band with your kid.

They also almost always have post-labor care mandatory since you're practically wheelchair bound after such a traumatic experience. No just walking out of there, you physically can't.

All that is to say, yes, you have to give your name and information and no, you're not just getting a baby to go. They don't exactly want a rando entering and leaving with someone's child, even by accident. You do have some rights though, at least around here, since for some reason we still respect even the craziest of religious rationals (like no meds at all).

This reminds me of what a former student is going through. Her boyfriend's parents did home births for all the kids. No birth certificates, no social security cards, no records. Parents just decided last month to up and leave. The 18 year old just got dumped with his siblings, a farm, and no safety net. So the girlfriend and some other friends that just graduated have been working together to care for these kids and run the farm while they work with DHS to figure out how to go forward.

They definitely don't make you fill out any forms, put trackers on you and the baby, and constantly check in over days. I'm sure it's super easy.

When we had our kids—in a small country hospital that my mother in law worked for, mind you—we nevertheless had to prove our identity multiple times, and I (the father) was put through extra identity verification—including the go-ahead from my wife—because there are so many liability issues around making sure that the right parents get the right kids. One time we were literally the only couple—and our baby the only baby—on the entire maternity ward and we still had to go through the wristband/umbilical clamp verification process, which included our names.

Sovcit's about to have a really fun time at a hospital.

[off topic] There was a science fiction story like that years ago.

The father and mother are told they can't take the kid home until they pay the bill, so they leave her there....

In the end the kid grows up to graduate medical school and gets a job at the same hospital; she pays her bill out of her first week's salary...

Ending spoiler: "YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHICH BABY I CAN TAKE!!!"

At first I was like, well that works for emergencies when you don't have insurance, but I don't think this plan will succeed Then I saw the sovcit part and realized that they're just fucking crazy people.

Would be cool if there was a follow-up post about what happened after this and if the baby survived.

The billing department will.make sure to get this data, if only to evict and foreclose them.

Hospitals are famously casual about things that could get them sued for liability.

/if you need me to tell you, get off the internet. it's fucking sarcasm