This article in the NY Times addresses the “safe abandonment” laws. It is a depressing read, let me warn you…

It states:

The killing and abandonment of newborns by their mothers seems incomprehensible to most people. New York is one of 47 states that allow parents to anonymously leave unwanted infants at sites like hospitals or firehouses without fear of prosecution under so-called safe-haven laws.

But critics say that safe-haven laws, while well-intentioned, fail to tackle the root causes of infanticide because they do not reach the women who need them most. And even though most states have adopted similar laws, few have implemented tracking mechanisms to see how well they work, or if they work at all.

Janet Keall told me infant abandonments have tripled since the laws were enacted. The article goes on to say…

“It isn’t clear whether every baby that has been turned in would’ve been killed,” said Carol Sanger, a family law professor at Columbia University’s law school. Instead, women who leave their babies at hospitals or firehouses might just as well have given them up for adoption or placed them with family members, she said.

Adam Pertman, author of “Adoption Nation” and executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, a nonprofit organization, agrees, saying that promoting safe abandonment creates more harm than good, partly because abandoned babies are put up for adoption with no biological and medical information available.

I talked to Beth about the “Baby Moses Law.” We started by telling Julie the story of the “original” Moses, and his trip down the river in a reed basket. Beth was shocked at the stark information in the article. While she didn’t read the article, we talked about why mothers would abandon or kill their babies. She asked more questions about abandonment of Chinese girls, and how parents could and would leave older kids. Julie chimed in that she had read stories about children left in the train station because it was a busy place. She also said that happened in China not only because of boy-preference issues but also because some parents were simply too poor to feed any child. We have friends in Illinois whose daughter was a toddler when she was abandoned in a market place. That child has serious PTSD and anxiety issues, and how could she not? Imagine turning around and finding yourself all alone in a market place?


It is not hard to see how being abandoned and traumatized in this fashion would add several additional layers to a child’s uncertainty about trusting future caretakers.


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