Posted: Tuesday, July 24, 2007 7:00 pm
So-called “safe haven” laws that give mothers the option of dropping off unwanted infants in safe places without fear of criminal penalty are still controversial.
But supporters clearly are presenting a more persuasive case. Earlier this month, the number of states without safe haven laws dropped from three to two when legislators in Hawaii overrode the governor’s veto. That leaves only Nebraska and Alaska without safe haven laws.
On balance, safe haven laws offer some social good, and there’s little evidence that the laws do harm.
The recent case involving the 21-year-old mother who left her newborn baby at Saint Elizabeth Regional Health Center offers advocates the sort of case that dramatizes the benefits of the legislation.
If Nebraska had a safe haven law, Megan Skrdlant of Lincoln would not have been in court Tuesday on a misdemeanor charge of neglect-abandonment.
The pressure is mounting. Even Oprah Winfrey earlier this summer singled out the holdout states and urged them to enact safe haven laws.
Supporters contend that without such laws, mothers are more likely to leave their babies in garbage bins, parking lots, toilets and other unsafe places. Earlier this year, a newborn was found near an Omaha apartment building’s dumpster.
Opponents, including Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, contend that the laws actually encourage abandonments because they make it easier to avoid consequences.
Adam Pertman of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute argues that the laws are not effective because some mothers are still abandoning their newborns in unsafe places.
The National Safe Haven Alliance reported last year, however, that at least 806 infants had been legally relinquished since the first law was passed in 1999.
The debate is not one that will be decided by dispassionate analysis. Researchers can’t probe the psyches of mothers who leave babies under the law; their identities are unknown. Under the circumstances, anecdotal evidence is powerful.
If the Nebraska Legislature decides to join the 48 states with safe haven laws, it should heed one of the lessons learned by earlier adopters: Make sure that plans and funds are in place to publicize the law. Senators also should require a mechanism to make sure an abandoned baby is not listed nationally as missing or abducted.
A “safe haven” law offers only a last-resort solution. But it would be better for troubled young mothers to have that option in Nebraska than not.