Currently the New Hampshire legislature is debating HB104 and its companion SB33 which if passed will legalize baby abandonment in the state.

I have followed the safe haven phenomenon since it started over three years ago. Although well intentioned, safe haven laws are not the solution to the abandonment of babies. Safe havens reverse a century-long child welfare policy of discouraging abandonment. They, instead, encourage abandonment and discourage pre-and post-natal care for mother and child, putting both at serious risk. In states with birth mother revocation periods, the timeframe is disregarded. The laws breach sections of the federal Indian Child Welfare Act (which New Mexico recently learned). Furthermore, the giving of social and medical history, important to both the abandonee and her potential adoptive parents is discouraged. The right of identity, one of the cornerstones of child placement policy in the US, is ignored.

HB104/SB33 contains no checks against non-custodial parents who don't want the responsibility of a child; distraught grandparents who want to get rid of an "embarrassment,” and even the mentally disturbed.

One of the most disturbing aspects HB104 is the exclusion of the rights of the non-custodial parent--usually the father. Oakland County, Michigan Circuit Court Judge Patrick Brennan has refused to terminate the rights of absentee fathers stating that his state's safe haven law, which is similar to HB104/SB33, denies due process to non-custodial parents. (Detroit Free Press, January 30, 2002.) Polk County, Florida Circuit Judge Robert L. Doyel has shown similar concern for parental safety and rights. Last week he took the helm of the search for a woman who safe-havened anonymously at Heart of Florida Medical Center. Alarmed by the mother’s statement that she had used the safe haven out of fear for her safety and that of her 18-month old child and the new baby, Judge Doyel contended that the state has a constitutional due process requirement to not only find the infant's mother, but the father as well. " (Polk County News Chief, January 17, 2003; Lakeland Ledger, January 18, 2003.)

New Hampshire’s safe haven pushers are using the well-publicized case in Kenosha, Wisconsin where last week a teen father tossed his newborn son into an open pit toilet and left him to die. They say a safe haven law could stop such tragedies from happening in New Hampshire. Yet, according to the Kenosha County Sheriff, the baby’s mother knew of her state’s law and asked her boyfriend to take the baby to a drop-off spot. Instead, he decided to kill him.

Crisis pregnancy, poverty, substance abuse, denial, shame, and mental illness are the real causes of child abandonment. Proposals such as HB104/SB33 simply create a no-fuss-no-muss policy that turns its back on the very women and children it purports to help. Baby dump advocate, Dr. William Pierce, retired president of the reactionary adoption lobby, The National Council for Adoption, refers to safe havens as "non-bureaucratic placement" for those who find best practice standards such as informed consent, counseling and even paper-signing, too confusing and complicated. There is not one iota of evidence to suggest that those babies surrendered anonymously were in danger of neglect, mistreatment or death. Parents whose newborns are truly at risk continue to harm.

Bastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights Organization has led the opposition to safe havens nationwide. The American Adoption Congress, Spence Chapin Services for Family and Children, National Advocates for Pregnant Women, Holt International, Child’s Best Interest, and Massachusetts Families for Kids, are but a few of the other professional and activist organizations also opposing safe havens. BN believes that it is no coincidence that safe haven laws neatly coincide with the passage of Ballot Measure 58 in Oregon and legislation in Alabama, which restored the right of adopted adults to their own state-held records in those jurisdictions. Dr. Pierce, who for over 20 years has also lead the battle to keep records sealed from adult adoptees, wrote recently that that safe havens are a response to open records.

Public welfare programs and private adoption agencies are the traditional means by which women have been able to relinquish their children legally and safely. These should be well publicized and encouraged for those women and girls who feel they cannot or will not rear a child. If New Hampshire wants to spend money to help women and babies in crisis, then why not pump money into existing programs or create new programs? Using taxpayer money to teach parents how to abandon their babies is bad social policy, bad economics, and in the end counterproductive to strengthening families and to healthy children

Last year, a similar proposal to HB104/SB33 was allowed to die. This one deserves a similar fate. The State of New Hampshire should not be in the business of encouraging and facilitating personal irresponsibility and covering up the dirty deed after the fact. It should most certainly not be in the business of erasing identity and heritage.


Marley Greiner is the Executive Chair of Bastard Nation and the editor and publisher of Baby Dump News: A Weekly eChronicle of Baby Abandonment that covers national and international news on baby abandonment, infanticide, safe haven legislation, and related news. She can be reached at maddogmarley@worldnet.att.net