Safe Haven

You’ve likely heard by now about the rural Forsyth County, Ga., family who found a full-term infant girl wailing from within a tied plastic shopping bag in the nearby woods. She’d been cast off like garbage.

But her cries, initially mistaken for animal shrieks in the darkness, were identified by the finely tuned ear of another child who insisted the sound was an infant crying.

Divine intervention wouldn’t allow her to die. And after being rescued by law enforcement officers summoned to the scene, she was instantly dubbed in much of the media as “The Miracle Baby” and “Baby India.” Reportedly, more than 1,000 people have since offered to adopt her.

I wrote years back of a 2-pound newborn who survived an abortion in Pine Bluff after being delivered by accident then placed in a brown paper sack by the physician and sent home to die. But the guilt-ridden young mother and her relatives watching the rustling sack chose to save the child by shepherding her to Children’s Hospital in Little Rock.

A similar horror story described a 1980s autopsy performed at the State Crime Laboratory on a 5-pound viable baby girl. Aborted, she had been callously tossed into a Little Rock drainage ditch.

Thankfully, our society has progressed to the point where those who bear unwanted babies have options other than the barbaric choices of plastic bags, grocery sacks or drainage ditches.

In Arkansas, I’m talking about an ongoing billboard campaign across all 75 Arkansas counties to promote the state’s Safe Haven Baby Law passed in 2001, and the soon-to-be-available Safe Haven Baby Boxes designed to save unwanted infants 30 days or younger.

The first billboard became operational here in Harrison and Boone County on June 14. The campaign intends to educate the public about this law and the addition of manned fire departments as additional hosts for Safe Haven Baby Boxes. The goal is to let unwilling parents know they have a practical and anonymous option that ensures their child is well cared for.

The Safe Haven Baby Boxes in Arkansas are a new concept that exists thus far in Indiana and Ohio. Arizona also has a similar method of receiving surrendered infants in so-called baby drawers.

I congratulate Monica Kelsey of Indiana, founder of Safe Haven Baby Boxes, and Rose Mimms, the executive director of Arkansas Right to Life, for developing and promoting the Safe Haven Baby Box concept in our state to add the devices in fire stations and other locations.

Kelsey, who was abandoned as an infant, found her purpose in life as a strong advocate for the Safe Haven Baby Boxes, the state’s first of which hopefully will be up and operational in September. She brought a Safe Haven box along when testifying before the Arkansas Senate Health Committee. She wanted to demonstrate it for

legislators and reinforce the need for anonymity for the parents who choose to surrender their child.

We can all agree that when it comes to saving a child’s life any moral rationale behind the abandonment naturally pales.

The Arkansas Safe Haven Law (a version of laws embraced by every state) said babies abandoned because of parents’ inability or unwillingness to parent need protection as well as a convenient and legally protected way to make the surrender.

Originally that could occur at police stations or hospital emergency rooms. But an amendment approved this year, sponsored by GOP Sen. Cecile Bledsoe and Rep. Rebecca Petty, beginning in July will include 24-hour manned fire stations as acceptable locations for child surrender, and the Safe Haven Baby Boxes.

Under Arkansas’ Safe Haven Law, parents can bring a baby younger than 30 days to a person at a surrender location without fear of prosecution for abandonment or endangering a child. The only caveat is the infant should not show signs of abuse or neglect prior to being surrendered, which could result in criminal charges.

The Safe Haven Baby Boxes are available to acceptable locations (noting they are expensive and require local fundraising to acquire one). They will allow for complete anonymity, since the abandoned child is placed—without others around—in a self-contained, climate-controlled environment, which immediately triggers a call to 911. From there, the state’s Division of Children and Family Services takes over care, including a medical evaluation before ultimately placing the child with a “forever family.”

Mimms told me her Right to Life’s statewide billboard campaign hopefully will help inform the wider public there is a viable, effective and fully confidential program available for those not wanting to parent an infant.

Children and Family Services also maintains a website and related material printed in both English and Spanish to assist in educating Arkansans. Mimms said Arkansas Right to Life found its niche both by supporting the amended law and sponsoring the educational billboard program.

So let’s all hope there will never be another infant cast needlessly aside to die when such a convenient, safe and anonymous way to preserve that precious life is available.