Why don't safe haven laws work? ?

tickled blue

From the Adoption Institute: http://www.adoptioninstitute.org/whowe/commentary.html

A mother who is so distraught or so in denial that she would stuff her newborn into a trash can is not likely, instead, to ask her boyfriend for a ride to the police station. The study found that to be the major reason unsafe abandonments are continuing unabated, even in states that advertise their "safe havens" on highway billboards and in public-service TV commercials.

Women in distress need counseling and support, not to mention pre- and postnatal medical assistance. But these laws don't even pretend to offer resources to help mothers deliver healthy babies or to resolve the traumas that lead them to jeopardize their newborns' lives.

This don't ask, don't tell approach does, however, open a Pandora's box.

It undermines the established legal rights of biological fathers to parent their own children, for instance, while precluding grandparents and other relatives from helping to care for the mother or her child. Alternatively, it creates the opportunity for irate boyfriends or disapproving family members to coerce an emotionally fragile teenager into deserting her baby, or even to take the child themselves and anonymously abandon it.

Worst of all, these laws proclaim, loud and clear, that deserting a child is socially sanctioned behavior. That's an unnerving message for our culture to be sending. And it is already being heard: Some women who never would have thought to deprive their offspring of genealogical, personal, or even critically important medical information are doing so now, because they've been given an option that's less of a hassle than receiving parenting counseling or filling out adoption paperwork.

So there are indeed infants being left at safe havens, but few if any of them would have been carelessly given up if these laws didn't exist. Rather, they are children who otherwise would have been adopted through traditional means or been raised by birth relatives, but who now must grow up without any prospect of knowing the most basic facts about themselves.

The new Adoption Institute study raises other red flags, too, from specific concerns such as whether these laws actually encourage women to conceal their pregnancies and give birth unsafely, to the sweeping indictment that anonymous abandonment flies in the face of recognized best practices developed for decades by child-welfare and adoption professionals.

The proponents of safe havens often answer criticism by saying their approach is worthwhile even if it saves just one baby's life.

I have an alternative suggestion: Let's aim higher. Let's conduct the solid research, and then do the thoughtful planning and careful implementation. That way, we can develop policies that help women who face crisis pregnancies, prevent infant abandonment - and maybe, just maybe, save all the babies' lives

LaurieDB

The people who illegally abandon their babies to die, or who directly commit infanticide, are not likely to use safe havens no matter how well they are advertised and how much they are guaranteed freedom from any kind of prosecution. This is because these are people who have mental issues that differ greatly from simply not wanting to raise their children.

Here in California, the rate of illegal abandonment has not decreased since the inception of the "Safe Surrender" law. In Nebraska, the law now states that parents can legally abandon their children up to age 19!

People who do not wish to raise their children, but who do not suffer from such mental status as those who commit infanticide, normally choose to go through the relinquishment process following a birth.

Unfortunately, safe havens have created a great way to legally abandon one's child. Safe havens receive children who are wrapped in blankets, with notes and toys. Clearly these are not children who were in danger of being discarded in the trash. The safe haven just means that some people will choose to legally abandon rather than go through the "bother" of completing the legal steps to traditionally relinquish.

Hospital workers have sometimes encouraged women to "just safe haven it" when a woman gives birth but decides she doesn't wish to parent. This, despite the existence of a social worker down the hall who could help arrange a traditional relinquishment and adoption.

In the meantime, those who will kill their babies continue to do so, while the "convenience and ease" that attracts some to safe havens instead of traditional relinquishment leaves many children with no link to their own identities, histories and backgrounds.

Safe havens also set up a situation where a child can be "safe havened" by someone other than the mother, without her knowledge or consent. It most certainly can be used to circumvent the rights of fathers, as well.

ETA:
Tickled Blue and I were posting at the same time, so I just read her post. Tickled, you make some wonderful points!

bugitz0223

I don't think this has anything to do with lack of education, or not wanting to ask their boyfriend for a ride to the safe haven...a person who would do such a thing has a mental problem. it could be a mental illness, or it could be a cognitive disability. There is no way that a sane, reasonably intelligent person with any kind of conscience whatsoever would murder a full term living baby.

cakitcat2

There was just a case in our area that was on the news. A 21 yr old had a baby and took it to a funeral home that was a couple of blocks from her house. She handed it to someone. She did not dump it. They hunted her down and arrested her because they said that she did not take it to a hospital or fire station.

The girl just had a baby all by herself and she walked two blocks to hand the baby to someone that she thought was safe. I don't agree with what she did but it could have been so much worse. I don't think that they should have arrested her for that.

Point being that I think that women don't trust the fact that they won't get in some sort of trouble even if they take the baby to a hospital or fire station. They are just plain scared.

Randy B

I guess whether or not they work is a matter of perspective. Nothing is 100% and even if it works to save one child I'd say they are successful.

My question would be "why are they not more effective then they are?" And to that I would answer that it's probably a matter of education and publicity. There will always be those persons who, for personal reasons from embarrassment to fear, will still not take advantage of the programs but if word was out there more and steps were taken to try to work on the unfounded fears/worries and stigma then we may see them more successful.

Are they still not relatively new laws/programs too? I mean, within the last 10-15 years? If so, that's a really short time to turn around generations of thinking and misconception.

Alyssa's mommy

Ignorance. If they are so worried about dumping a child and have no problem with killing them, they are obviously not educated enough.

The media doesn't make an impact on the kind of people who do that. Those people don't watch the evening news or read the paper. The info needs to be made known in high schools and such.

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