The governor of Nebraska has called the state legislature back to a special session to deal with unintended repercussions of Nebraska’s Safe Haven law, which took effect this past summer. The consequence of the law that legislators probably never intended is the abandonment of older children and teenagers by their parents. Thirty-four of the 35 children abandoned under the law have been over the age of five.
All 50 U.S. states now have some form of safe haven law, sometimes called a “Baby Moses law“, allowing a baby to be left at a hospital, police or fire station, or similar facility with no questions asked. These laws are intended to prevent the tragedies we sometimes read about where a newborn is abandoned and later is found dead, or is even killed.
Nebraska’s law states that no person shall be charged with a crime for abandoning a child at a licensed hospital in Nebraska. Other states’ laws use the word “infant”, and are designed solely for parents who cannot or don’t wish to parent a newborn. Most states stipulate that the infant be less than 72 hours old, a few states say a month, one state several months. Nebraska was the last state to pass a safe haven law.
From September until now, the law has been used 26 times and 35 children have been abandoned under its provisions. In one case, a man left nine of his ten children, ranging in age from one to seventeen years old, saying that his wife had died last year and he couldn’t care for the children any longer. In all of the other 25 cases, the child was at least five years old.
Some children and their parents aren’t even from Nebraska. One parent drove fifteen hours from her home in Georgia to leave her twelve-year-old at a hospital in Lincoln, Nebraska. Interviewed by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper, she stated, “I ran out of fight. I ran out of hope. I never ran out of love for my child.” Another child, from Florida, is being escorted by an employee of Nebraska’s Health and Human Services Department back to Florida, where the Florida department of children’s services will take custody of him.
Hospital social workers and police station employees said that the parents they have been able to talk to before they left blamed behavioral problems in the children or emotional stress that they themselves were under, rather than financial problems. Although finances may have been the issue, they were not often cited as the most important reason. According to a Washington Post article, 27 of the abandoned minors had received mental health services, 28 were from single-parent families, and 22 had had at least one parent or guardian who had been jailed. Twenty-two of the 35 children/youths are male.
Needless to say, this situation is devastating for older children who are aware of what is happening and have formed bonds with their parents or guardians, however imperfect the situation may be. One social worker described a scene where she was paged to the emergency room of a hospital. Arriving, she found a sobbing twelve-year-old and a mother who kept saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” as the child begged her not to leave. When he asked if she would come visit him, she said, “If I can,” and ran off before the social worker could ask her any questions.
Last month, Nebraska Governor Dave Heinemann has written an open letter to citizens imploring them not to use the law in this unintended way. The governor urged parents and families in difficulty to call Nebraska’s 2-1-1 human services information line, which includes information on finding respite care, food banks, family preservation services, financial management, emergency psychiatric care, anger management courses, substance abuse treatment, and child care. Heinemann also recommended the Boys’ Town National Hotline: 1-800-448-3000 and the website Answers for Families.
The special legislative session to amend the law began last Friday, November 14.
Here is a related blog which tells a similar story occurring in another country:Japan’s Baby Mail Box