"Safe Havens": Terrible Idea

Bitch Ph.D. praises safe haven laws in passing and invites people who know more about them to chime in.

Thanks for the invitation.  Professor B, I usually agree with everything you say, but you're as wrong as could be on this one.  Safe Haven laws are truly a terrible idea, bad for babies, bad for women, just plain bad all around.  That's why so many independent organizations, including the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute and the American Adoption Congress have spoken out against them.

First, these laws don't work.  Women who abandon their babies are generally in a panicked, dissociative state; they aren't *planning* to abandon their babies after considering the (assumed) shame of being identified as the mother.  So any approach that relies on *reason* isn't likely to solve the problem of baby abandonment--and it hasn't.  Babies are being abandoned at the same (extremely low) rates they always were.  Safe Haven laws have made zero difference.  [For more on this, see Baby Abandonment Laws:  Is the Solution Worse Than the Problem? Paper presented by Mary Zoller, Division of Women's and Infant's Health, Virginia Department of Health at the 2002 APHA conference  (type in her name to reach abstract and paper)] 

More important, these laws actually do harm.

Think about it: these laws encourage women--women who might otherwise seek help--to hide their pregnancies and avoid getting medical care.  Safe haven proponents are fond of saying things like, "If it saves one baby, it's worth it"--but these laws are far more likely to KILL a baby, or to KILL the mother, or BOTH, by encouraging women to hide their pregnancies.  I can't find a link right now, but at least one case has been documented in which a young mother died during childbirth; she had information about safe havens hidden in her bedroom.   

Here's another story that I did save--not online anymore--where the young mother could have died, but thankfully didn't, but her baby did die (reported in a Chicago paper, I think the Trib, on Aug. 18, 2004):

An infant boy was found dead in a shoebox in the home of his 15-year-old mother in Lansing, Ill., on Monday.

That girl wants you to know she didn’t kill the baby. She wants you to know what really happened to her infant son.  How she hid her pregnancy from her family for seven months.  How she gave birth on her own, in a bathtub, at 4 in the morning last Friday.  How she slept next to the tiny body, born two months premature, for two days, without telling a soul, even though she knew her child was dead.  About his name — Raphael Pierre.

She wants you to know she was trying to do what she thought right. But she made mistakes. . . .  With hair pulled back by a headband and a black Snoopy shirt on her small frame, she looked at the ground and described what happened to “my baby.”  “He was born premature because I didn’t get any natal care,” she said.  “And because I was so young.” . . . .

The girl was hospitalized briefly with an infection, but was told she’ll recover. What she doesn’t know is how she’ll face her family again. She’sstill afraid of what they may think. And she doesn’t know how to make it up to Raphael Pierre. She said she knows she owes him. “I would rather be,” she said, speaking slowly and fighting back tears, “in his situation.”

Why on earth do we want to ENCOURAGE these tragic situations? 

Whenever a baby dies tragically, someone says, "Gee we should spend more money to advertise the ways you can abandon your infant." 

Why don't these people say, "Gee, we should spend more money to HELP desperate pregnant women?"  Programs like Project Cuddle (which operates a crisis hotline) demonstrably help.  But it seems that our society would rather settle for the bare minimum (let's try to keep babies alive without ever considering why they're dying in the first place) rather than for the ideal (let's try to have resources available so no women are ever so desperate that they abandon their babies).

I must emphasize that women who want to keep their pregnancies confidential can do that--AND get prenatal care AND make responsible adoption plans--using existing laws.  In our society, shame is less and less a factor for pregnant women; open adoptions are far more popular than closed ones, and even in closed adoptions, many women would welcome future contact with their grown children.  But even for those women who are ashamed and do seek confidentiality, there's no need to put themselves and their babies at risk, yet the Safe Haven laws actively encourage them to do just that.

Moreover, existing adoption laws are in place to provide PROTECTIONS to the mother, the father, and the baby.   For example, they include waiting periods so that vulnerable young mothers can't be pressured to sign adoption papers immediately after delivery.  They provide an opportunity for other relatives, such as the father or grandparents, to care for the baby.  Safe Havens deprive the parents of those protections.

Safe Havens also deprive the children of information that a legal adoption (even a secret, closed adoption) would provide: information about ethnic background and health history, for example.  If you think that's inconsequential, try living without it.  Of course, life with no information is better than death--but that's a false choice, since Safe Haven laws don't affect the desperate situations that lead to infant death.

Another HUGE problem: there's NO guarantee that the person leaving a child at a safe haven is actually the mother.  Could be an ex-girlfriend or the father, or a disapproving grandparent or neighbor, or the babysitter.  In fact, frequently babies who are claimed to have been "saved" by these laws are dropped off by someone other than the mother.  For example, last August in San Antonio, two "20-something Asian men" dropped off an 11-month old boy.  Are we supposed to believe that the mother of this toddler debated drowning her baby in the toilet and then decided, "No, I'll have my neighbor take him to the fire station instead--no one will ever know I was even pregnant"? Basically, these laws allow ANYONE who wants to steal a baby for nefarious purposes to do so.

I'm sure most people who support safe haven laws really don't know much about them and don't know any better.  But at the risk of sounding a little "tinfoil hat" about this, I must mention that one of the biggest proponents of these "Safe Haven" laws is the National Council for Adoption.  The NCFA website rhetoric is very touchy-feely, but basically this organization is made up of for-profit adoption agencies.  The NCFA was founded to oppose open records laws (which allow adult adopted people to access their own government-held records, such as birth certificates) and it moved on to advocate for "Safe Haven" laws.  "Safe Haven" laws in at least Arizona and Mississippi include "licensed adoption agencies" among the legal baby drop-off points.  Are we supposed to believe that a young mother in distress will consider leaving her baby in the dumpster but then (after spotting the "Safe Haven" ad on the bag from her local Safeway) change her mind, look in the yellow pages for adoption agencies, check to see which agencies have licenses, and then RUSH her newborn to these offices?  Or could there be some other kind of mother that these for-profit agencies are hoping to reach?  Hmmmmmmmmm.

For a dispassionate summary of the pros and cons of Safe Havens, see the National Conference of State Legislatures Child Welfare Project report.

Comments

[New Kid on the Hallway]

Thanks for posting this - I knew very little about these laws. One was instituted in the state where I used to live in the wake of a case of a baby found in a public restroom trashcan, but I guess I kind of wondered how it would really change the situations it was designed to address.

[bitchphd]

I don't know much about these laws, either, and I did run across some of the things you mention in a very brief google search--but some of the things I found were posted by religious organizations, so I dismissed them.

I agree: it is far more important to destigmatize pregnancy, to provide prenatal care, all of it. And honestly, I do think that infanticide is always going to occur, just as murder will always occur: it's part of our nature.

Food for thought. Thanks :)

[Dawn]

Wow, this was helpful; thank you. I wasn't sure what to think of Safe Haven laws. They certainly sounded good but from what I knew about abandoned babies, I did wonder how they would actually work. But I hadn't looked into it lately to see whether or not they were working. This certainly gives me a lot to consider and I appreciate it.

[Sharon]

I'm going to have to take issue with you on one thing. I've read the Adoption Institute's (http://www.adoptioninstitute.org/whowe/Last%20report.pdf) full report. Its criticism of safe haven laws is compelling and everyone concerned with this should read it. It *does* contain some very worrying evidence that women who might have turned to adoption have instead used the legal abandonment laws. But it does not support your argument that safe haven laws are positively encouraging women (who would not have done so otherwise) to conceal their pregnancies; it briefly suggests this but gives no supporting evidence for it. In fact, it repeatedly argues that the safe haven laws are making *no* difference to those women who would previously have concealed their pregnancies and abandoned their babies unsafely, and it points out that unsafe abandonments have been continuing at the same (low) rate since the adoption of these laws.

I really don't want to sound negative, because I think this is a great post - it really made me think about this matter in a great light. Thanks for that.

[mjones]

I agree with Sharon, that it is a great post, but also that legislation has very little effect on these sorts of fundamental decisions women face.

It's so frustrating! Centuries ago some people argued against allowing women to anonymously leave their infants at foundling hospitals, on the grounds that it would encourage immorality. What these people were really against, was losing the opportunity to make women pay for their "indiscretions."

[marlene]

Thanks a lot.I needed to do a speech on the safe haven law for a college course but I didn't know exactly which route to go because I have only heard good things about the baby safe haven but now I know about the other side and it's not as good as I thought.

[Christopher Fox Graham]

Argue about the laws all you want and their limited use. Until there is cradle to grave healthcare and social and relgious stigma about teaching safe sex and contraceptives in eliminated, infanticide will occur. But if the law prevents one infanticide like this, http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1011deadbaby11.html, this law is valuable.

In 18 years, ask the child whose life is saved because of these laws, whether they are worth passing legislation.

[Beth]

Christopher, that link you just posted does not work. However, I encourage you to view this link: http://www.americanadoptioncongress.org/position-statements-abandoned.htm or this one http://www.ncsl.org/programs/cyf/slr268.htm

Ask the parents of the teen girl who dies (along with their grandchild) because of complications from a concealed pregnancy whether the law was worth it. Ask the mother of the baby who was abducted and turned in to a "safe haven" whether the law was worth it. Ask the children now who were foundlings and know nothing of their ethnic or medical history whether these laws are worth it--Bastard Nation (www.bastards.org) has many "founding foundlings" who would appreciate the opportunity to enlighten you.

If even ONE baby or child dies from not receiving proper medical care, does that make the law NOT worth it? Because that already has happened. Bastardette tracks these things; ask her to subscribe you to her newsletter http://bastardette.blogspot.com/ (and yes, she is obviously an anti-safe haven advocate, but guess what? Governmental organizations largely DON'T EVEN TRY to track this information. Her newsletter links to stories published in local papers and television stations, so you can verify the events she reports.)

Furthermore, there is no evidence to suggest that these laws have prevented ANY infanticides. I assume the broken link you posted referred to an infant death in Arizona. Well, Arizona ALREADY HAS a safe haven law. It didn't prevent whatever tragedy you're trying to post here.

I won't argue about the need for better healthcare and safe sex teaching however. We *definitely* agree on that. Did you get a chance to look at Project Cuddle's website? A better solution, clearly.