Lessons from Nebraska

Safe haven laws are designed to save young infants from being abandoned in unsafe public settings such as dumpsters and bathrooms. In July 2008, Nebraska enacted a safe haven law. The law was intended to make it possible for parents to leave newborns at designated sites without fear of prosecution for abandonment. However, unlike other states, Nebraska did not specify an age limit. Parents began dropping of folder children. This was an entirely unintended outcome. By November, 36 children had been left at safe haven sites. Only one was less than five years old. All but four of these children had received mental health services at some time in their young lives (Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, n.d.). Moreover, many of the parents leaving these children were from other states. Last year, Nebraska amended its safe haven law to limit placement to infants up to the age of 30 days. This amendment returns the law to its intended purpose, but it fails to address the issues that brought parents of older children to the point of abandoning them to Nebraska authorities. Nebraska's experience received national media attention. Some television reports and print media lamented parents abandoning their responsibilities (Eckholm, 2008). But closer inspection of the Nebraska experience is instructive in highlighting an unmet need that reflects the desperation parents can face in dealing with difficult family situations regarding their children. SAFE HAVEN INTENTIONS Abandoning a child, including a newborn, has been a crime for decades. Texas, in 1999, was the first state to provide the parent of an infant with the option of leaving a newborn at designated sites (for example, fire stations, police stations) without fear of prosecution. Now all states have such a law. The intent behind the law is to provide desperate parents, usually mothers, with a chance to leave their newborn unharmed in a safe place. The parent is offered anonymity. No information from the parent is required. These laws are justified by asserting that states have a legitimate interest in trying to prevent infanticide. But infanticide is a relatively rare event. The federal government estimated that in 1997,105 infants were illegally abandoned. Of this number, 33 were found dead (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, 1998). Nevertheless, such deaths attract interest from both the media and advocacy groups. Safe haven laws are an attempt to address this issue. EFFECTIVENESS OF SAFE HAVEN LAWS There is a dearth of research on the effectiveness of safe haven laws. It is unclear how many parents know about such laws and how many parents premeditate neonaticide. There is anecdotal evidence that women who abandon infants or commit neonaticide may deny that they are pregnant and have compromised ability to make rational decisions (Friedman, Horwitz, & Resnick, 2005). Meyer et al. (2001) reported that extreme agitation and panic are common and that deaths are rarely premeditated. The problems associated with such studies are formidable. An accurate baseline cannot be established when the primary source of data is newspapers. To assess effectiveness, researchers would need to learn whether the women who placed their children with safe havens might have otherwise abandoned them unsafely, given them up for adoption through the child welfare system, or opted to rear the children (Oberman, 2008). In a study examining the effectiveness of the country's oldest safe haven law, Pruitt (2008) concluded the law did not cause harm. The number of infants abandoned before the law was just as high as the number abandoned after the law. Questions about the law's positive outcomes remain. The lack of evidence for the law's effectiveness has contributed to concerns about unintended consequences (Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, 2008). There are many concerns that focus on what messages safe havens send about parental responsibility and the right of adopted children to know about their family history. …