Safe Haven Baby Boxes

"Abandonments are happening everywhere, but people are not aware of it because it's not happening in their backyard."

"We can all agree a baby should be placed in my box and not in a dumpster to die."

"When a woman is given options, she will choose what's best for her. And if that means that in her moment of crisis she chooses a baby box, we should all support her in her decision."

Monica Kelsey, founder, "Safe Haven" Baby Drop Boxes

Safe Haven Baby Box

Unwanted babies born to girls and women who have no intention of raising and nurturing them for whatever reason, who are placed in areas where they will be seen and rescued, have taken place since time immemorial.  Houses of worship were often places where babies and infants were left abandoned to chance. Infanticide was always another option. With the greater availability of medical interventions to interrupt a pregnancy those abandonments were significantly lessened.

As a means of disposing of the unwanted burden by a woman who was raped, or one already raising too many children, or coping with poverty or any number of other reasons, abandonment of babies since the U.S. Supreme Court abandoned the right of women to seek safe medical abortions, giving the green light to states who seek to enact tougher laws restricting abortions or going to the extreme of making them illegal, are certain to be on the increase.

In 1999 after infants were discovered in garbage bins, safe haven legislation known as the "Baby Moses" law, was passed in Texas, a state which strictly forbids abortion under the law. Aborting a fetus doesn't fly in Texas, but abandoning babies in garbage bins as a solution doesn't, either. Enabling a woman under duress, desperate enough to consign a baby to death, to have an alternative disposal route by leaving a baby in a box, is considered a humane option. As a solution to an untenable choice, it is.

 

Now that Roe vs Wade has been overturned, the inevitable uptick in abandoned babies has resulted in the humanely compassionate promotion of adoption as an alternative to abortion. Leaving an unwanted baby into a drop-off bin resembles a disposal method commonly used in small-town communities in the 19th century. Such boxes can now be found at disparate public places from fire stations and hospitals to other sites where staff have received training in handling abandoned babies.

This completely anonymous solution to a difficult and heart-wrenching problem has seen over a dozen states pass laws to permit the use of drop boxes. Most of the 100 drop boxes currently in use in the United States are in Indiana where the movement began when Monica Kelsey, who discovered she had herself been abandoned mere hours after birth, felt a compassionate obligation to help both mothers and babies with a solution to an age-old dilemma.

A box installed at a fire station in Carmel, California received three babies this year following its disuse for the previous three years. Three more babies were left at boxes elsewhere in the state over the summer. Indiana last week became the first state to approve abortion restrictions in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe vs Wade.

Safe haven laws protecting mothers who surrender their babies have been passed in all 50 states. The Safe Haven movement promotes awareness of safe haven laws. Their hotline latterly has received over 8,000 calls from across the United States. Over 100 babies have been left with them, 21 of them surrendered through the safe haven boxes.

Safe Haven Baby Box