Your Help Needed to Defeat SAFE HAVEN Law in New Hampshire!!!

Lisa wrote >Also from my understanding it can only "legally" be done for up till the child is five days of age...Well what about those that find that they cannot cope say...2 weeks after the fact? 2 months after the fact? BUT cannot go through the shame, the stigma etc of adoption? .....Its one year in North Dakota Senate Bill 2129 Passed March 28, 2001 [url]http://ranch.state.nd.us/LR/01/bill_text/BQVC0300.pdf[/url] Key Points: Age: 1 year Safe Havens: Hospitals .........Sixty days in South Dakota Senate Bill 92 Passed: March 3, 2001 [url]http://legis.state.sd.us/sessions/2001/sesslaws/ch132.htm[/url] Key Points: Age: 60 days Safe Havens: Health care facilities or clinics, Law enforcement officers, Emergency medical technicians, Firefighters Liability: Immune from prosecution ........In Texas its 60 days as well... House Bill 3423 Passed June 6, 1999 [url]http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/cgi-bin/tlo/textframe.cmd?LEG=76&SESS=R&CHAMBER=H&BILLTYPE=B&BILLSUFFIX=03423&VERSION=5&TYPE=B[/url] Summary Key Points: Age: 60 days Safe Havens: Emergency medical services provider Liability: Immune from criminal prosecution ......Also the baby can be dropped off at licensed child-placement agency in Texas. I find that beyond the pale.. [url]http://www.campsanguinity.com/Physicians_and_Services/Find_a_Service/safe_baby_sites.asp?format=print[/url] Safe Baby Site guidelines Safe Baby Sites, including hospitals, fire stations and *licensed child-placement agencies* Jackie

The other factor is that ANYONE can abandon a child. Most laws word it as "any responsible adult" this loophole allows abusive dads to forfeit a birthmother's child without her consent, as well a bullying grandmother, or even an unrelated kidnapper. It doesn't matter if anyone has exercised a loophole, for the loophole to be a problem. Ray PS -check out a letter to the editor I wrote in Kentucky: [url]http://www.snitch.com/000432.html[/url]

i was abandoned at birth in a car. it was a cold night, and i almost died of infection. i'm not saying safe haven laws would have altered my situation, but i think there is a chance. clearly she was scared and didn't know what to do. she should have been able to leave me somewhere safe without feeling she would be prosecuted. criminalizing leaving babies in safe locations closes the doors on pregnant women, even if only perceptually. the problem is that pregnant women who do not want their babies feel ostracized from society. they have no where to go. safe haven laws are a step in the process destigmatizing the process of adoption, through the normal, legal means you suggest.

JessieBear Have you ever found any information about yourself? Jackie

no i haven't found any information except for a newspaper article and what the state told my parents. but i'm alive because i was lucky. most babies aren't so lucky. i'm doing everything i can to get safe haven laws passed. forty six states have them. and we'll get the rest soon.

I agree with raybuffer 100%. And I will contact the New Hamp. legislators to defeat this bill just as I contacted the Mass. legislators before the bill was stalled there. An earlier post, by someone else, referred to the bio father's concerns as being "mute." How telling. The correct spelling is "moot" (no longer relevant as an issue) Or did the person really mean "mute?" (without a voice) I am anti-abortion. Still, I fail to see the connection between safe havens and killing a child in utero. The abortion argument is odd because Roe v. Wade held that, after the second trimester of pregnancy, the state's interest in the child was superior to the mother's right to privacy. Abortion opponents now opine that extending the mother's right to privacy beyond the birth is the cure to everything. No matter what the argument in favor of safe havens is, the question still remains as to how, except for anonymity, safe havens concerns can't be dealt with adequately through conventional adoption. The ignorance througout these posts about what our constitution stands for is disgusting. One main purpose for our constitution is to protect the rights of the minority from the power and will of the majority. Thus, the Constitution was not set up in view of those "most" fathers who have abandoned the mother, but in contemplation of those who have not abandoned the mother. Last month, an unwed man e-mailed me saying that his girlfriend was pregant by him and, aided by her strict Catholic father who did not want the family to be shamed, went out of state to avoid him. The e-mailer told me that the girlfriend threatened to relinquish the child to a safe haven should he pursue any of his rights, which he wants to do. He asked me for advice. What am I supposed to tell him--that he is moot? Or, "Well, you obviously did something to make her run away from you?" Or, "If you had been more supportive to the mother, her dad wouldn't have felt shamed?" Some argue that SHs protect mothers from shame or stigma. This makes little sense. The shame associated with out-of-wedlock pregnancies has rapidly diminshed in the last twenty-five years. With few exceptions, it is only the Christian right who insist the stigma stay there. The shame and stigma will be gone soon if we just let the trend toward that disappearance continue. That is the best way to prevent mothers from wanting to abandon their children in the first place. In that sense, safe haven anonymity does not protect certain people from being psychologically eradicated by stigma, but protects the stigma from being psychologically eradicated by the people.

Erik, Look, Safe Haven is to help save babies that are abandoned in unsafe places. Many scared birthmom's decide they want to give up their baby, but they don't know what to do. Therefore, many times they abandon them in unsafe locations, such as cars, like the case was with my birth mother. I almost died of infection. Most babies aren't so lucky. The babies that would be saved by Safe Haven legislation would either die or be very sick otherwise. It's not like the rights of those fathers would be protected without the law. Any father should be in favor of legislation that would preserve the life of his child. Forty-six states have the legislation; I think that says a lot about the facts in its favor. Please don't work to combat this legislation. Nothing is worth losing babies.

As many have pointed out, you have no clear evidence that safe havens really save babies--only that they theoretically can save babies. But having criminal penalties for child abandonment can theoretically save babies too. You also have no evidence that your mother would have used a safe haven had there been one. You are pulling that out of the clear blue sky. You also do not, or cannot, elaborate on why your mother abandoned you. Was she mentally ill? Did dad abandon her? Did your grandparents abandon her? Thus, your belief in safe havens as some sort of cure is more a wish, and extension of your own abandonment, than a rationale solution to an age-old problem. Babies are not worth saving at all cost. Just as adults are not worth saving at all cost. We send men to war, knowing some will die, because our freedom and our constitution is worth more than life. The declaration, "Give me liberty or give me death" means exactly that.

edenstore wrote..Last month, an unwed man e-mailed me saying that his girlfriend was pregant by him and, aided by her strict Catholic father who did not want the family to be shamed, went out of state to avoid him. What gets me is that some states give a woman or girl two months to a year to abandon the baby.. That is not saving a life.. That is a very different kettle of fish.. Jackie

The laws certainly aren't working in Texas where they were initiated. I agree with Ray who is to say "who" is abandoning this child if no information is taken? And what about the rights of the father (or other family members for that matter) who knows nothing about his child if it is "dropped off". Couldn't a grandmother, exgirlfriend, anyone give leave this child. This has already happened once with a father who left his baby with his girlfriend (not the mother) never returned and the girl left the baby in a safe haven. Luckily, the birthmother was found. If you research child abandonment in history it goes way back to 14th century Europe (yes and even way before that) when child abandonment put orphanages out of business due to more and more people giving up their children and eventually these places due to overwhelming amounts of babies left had to close their doors. So, what message are we sending to everyone including our own children? That the life of a child is worth nothing simply "dump" it off and walk away. As an adoptee it makes me feel like discarded trash. We have disposable razors, cameras, and now children? Sorry, it seems like a band-aid solution to a bleeding artery. I would like to see other avenues pursued such as speaking to teenagers about options such as birth control and sex education and yes, even adoption. Let's get to the root of the problem and fix it not add to it.

I got this thread reacticated so to speak by accident, I responded to a reply that was a year old. I also got New Hampshire mixed up for Vermont--NH passed their bill last year, I believe, but Vermont has not and may be next--though people say it won't pass there. If and when it goes before the VT legislature, I encourage you to write their legislature. I agree with your views on Safe Havens. Many adoptees despise safe havens. Deep down everyone knows that the majority of those who use the safe haven will be using it to avoid the traditional adoption route and notifying fathers. The law also gives wives superior rights to make decsions about their children than husbands have. For a married woman to support the bill, is for her to say she does not respect her husband as an equal person under the law. This escapes those married people who support the law, of course, because they don't think it will ever happen to them.

"Forty-six states have the legislation; I think that says a lot about the facts in its favor. Please don't work to combat this legislation. Nothing is worth losing babies." Look at the stats on how this legislation is working in all states first. We are losing babies right and left still and history shows that the more we promote abandonment the more we condone it thus upping it's occurance(s). How many language and culture barriers are we having to deal with now (especially in Texas where I am) and mothers who can't understand legalities. This legislation to me is a "do goody good" promotion on the part of many legislators to promote their "good image" in the eyes of voters or people who are not thinking out the long term ramifications of this law. The answer is to reach these mothers before they abandon their children by ways I mentioned in my previous post. So we save one baby while many more are left for dead and abandoned anyway or given up with no medical records, information for them or their future generations (and how many health problems and deaths will result from this too?) I and my children are prime examples of lives not lead to their fullest spending years, time, and money on health issues and struggling to survive physically which NO medically records or recourse to get them dealing with rare and hereditary diseases. Abortion you say? Yes, many times over the past 30 years I have wished for that instead of wasting away being sick with no answers to my health issues. Want to see your children sick and struggling? It's not pretty believe me and the stories and situations I have witnessed just in adoption in the past 7 years here online are horrific at times. And, more importantly, the message sent that our children are disposable commodities. Hence, more and more and more children are left this way? I find it sad sorry. I work with kids, I am a teacher and a mother. Children are all precious to me. That is why I want the best for them. And, the best for them is to be placed in a good home be it birth or adoptive and to know that they were not thrown out like the daily trash. I am not here to combat baby saving legislation I am here to change the way that it is done. PS I did get updated medical record and finally after 30 years got answers to alot of much needed questions for doctors. I can't imagine anyone's life being like this but alas it is. Yes, bad things happen to people but THIS is preventable. That...is my point.

"But having criminal penalties for child abandonment can theoretically save babies too." YEP I agree and so are things like respite homes for unwed mothers that could be anonymous until the pregnancy was over and information and babies adopted legally with rights to the birthfather given or babies kept by birthfamilies with parenting classes and or counseling. I'm sorry if I find legal abandonment at an adoption agency in Texas legal as conflict of interest. If we have to have safe haven abandonment can we not require some form of information left so that the child has recourse for records and inforation? I just see this legislation as an easier way to get around records and parental rights and make tossing our most precious commodity in the world away easy.

Karbrown makes the point that safe haven advocates never think about--what happens after the child is dumped. The only response one everb gets is the knee-jerk line: "Would you rather the child be dead?" If every mother who dumped a baby did so because she felt a desire to kill the child then maybe there would be a point. But the majority of mothers don't dump the babies for that reason. They do so to get around the child welfare system, the legalities entailed in going through adoption, and to avoid their family and friends knowing about their pregnancy or relinquishment. If men were the ones taking babies anonymously to firestations because they felt a strong urge to kill the children, women all over this country would be howling about how unfair it was and that men shouldn't be given a "new way to abandon their children." But, of course, since it is women who are in the "overwhelmed" situation, it's time once again to fool the public with neurotic pity.

"If men were the ones taking babies anonymously to firestations because they felt a strong urge to kill the children, women all over this country would be howling about how unfair it was and that men shouldn't be given a "new way to abandon their children." (CLAPPING) Wonderful point! There just are SO many more options that legal baby abandonment, and if so, others way of doing it. For me, I want to be a part of the solution. I would love to speak to children in schools (and yes children because more and more are getting pregnant younger and younger) about options, about responsibility before and or after you become pregnant, but mostly, about how these are human lives and need to be respected as such. That is a good starting point not when mothers have delivered and are in trouble.