Safe haven law has unintended consequences

A Lincoln mother who worked diligently for a Nebraska safe haven law for infants said she would rather senators establish a 7-day age limit.

Mothers frequently are not healthy enough in 72 hours to transport a newborn to a hospital, said Deanna Weeks, who has worked on a Nebraska bill since 2007.

If they have spent nine months denying the pregnancy, three days is not enough time to make a thoughtful decision about what to do, she said.

Nebraska legislators passed the safe haven bill in February —the last state to do so — after a compromise led them to write it without an age limit. Many apparently did not foresee what would ensue: Since September, parents have dropped off 31 older children — many of them teens.

States began passing safe haven laws in 1999, with Texas the first. Since then, 1,390 babies have been relinquished nationwide, according to Dawn Geras, with Save Abandoned Babies Foundation in Illinois and the National Safe Haven Alliance.

That total does not include Nebraska, which Geras believes does not have a true infant safe haven law, but rather a Children in Need of Services (CHINS) law.

That type of law typically applies to juveniles who are beyond the control of parents, and have other problems that place them or others at risk.

Those are the children being abandoned in Nebraska. No one has abandoned a newborn since the law took effect July 18.

Some senators have said they will address the issues of the older children in the regular session, which begins in January. But now, they must deal with making the law truly for infants.

That starts with narrowing the age.

States bordering Nebraska allow for an abandoned infant to be up to14 days old in Iowa, 45 days in Kansas, 3 days in Colorado, 14 days in Wyoming and 60 days in South Dakota.

In the special session, Omaha Sen. Rich Pahls plans to offer a bill similar to one he introduced in 2007 with an age limit of 30 days.

Lincoln Sen. Bill Avery would like to define children protected by the law as those 1 year old or younger.

“The issue is about saving children,” he said.

At least one study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, says children are most at risk of being killed or harmed by a parent in the first year of life, Avery said.

Last month, a majority of senators told Speaker Mike Flood the law should be amended to apply only to infants up to 3 days old.

Illinois originally set its age limit at 3 days, said Geras, who was instrumental in writing the bill. But it’s been changed several times since it passed in 2001.

One of the changes, a new 7-day age limit, still may be too narrow, she said.

Although 46 babies have been legally abandoned in Illinois since 2001, 53 have been illegally abandoned, Geras said. And only about half of those 53 survived.

One modification of the law has included a requirement to provide information about the law to students in health classes.

Voices for Children in Nebraska opposed a safe haven bill until last year, when it provided neutral testimony on the bills introduced.

Executive Director Kathy Bigsby Moore said in a recent letter to senators that Voices for Children urges implementing and funding an array of services for children and their parents to support them in difficult times and to prevent a child’s entry “into the limbo of foster care.”

The law as it is, even with a change of age, is only “feel good” legislation, Moore said.

A safe haven bill for infants should include a mechanism for parents to provide their identity and information about medical and family history that could be beneficial for the child in the future, the letter said. It would address fathers’ rights, offer medical and behavioral health services for the birth mother and the child, and establish a procedure for termination of parental rights. It should also fund a public education campaign, Moore said.

Voices for Children is also calling for legislation and funding for services for children with behavioral and mental health needs. A public education campaign would cover, among other things, normal adolescent brain development and challenges of caring for children with special needs.

For infants, Moore pushes the idea of adoption, with as short a period of limbo for the child and adoptive parents as possible.

“In the true adoption process, everybody wins,” she said. “Everybody is given the best advantage.”