Changes to state Safe Haven law

Their thoughts could be consumed by fear or panic. Perhaps they believe they don’t have the financial means to support a child. Whatever the reason, when a mother makes the excruciating decision to give up her newborn child she now has more options — and it can be done anonymously.

Georgia, along with every state in the country, for several years has had a Safe Haven law, which allows mothers to surrender their newborn at hospitals or other locations instead of illegally abandoning a child.

The Georgia Legislature has expanded the state’s Safe Haven law to allow babies to be left at fire and police stations, as well as sheriff’s offices. Another new part of the law is women can now do so anonymously. Women also now have more time to decide whether to give up the child. Before, only 7-day-old newborns could be legally surrendered; now, the baby can be up to 30 days old.

“If we care about newborns, then we need to expand it to more places, because what’s happening is mothers are just dropping them off at street corners,” Rep. David Clark, R-Buford, who sponsored the bill, recently told the Daily Citizen-News.

“Now, it’s truly putting the baby first, which we should be doing. It’s about saving the baby,” he said.

Fire chiefs for both Dalton and Whitfield County are now developing policies to help adhere to the new law, and also to make sure the babies are cared for until someone from another agency picks them up. County Fire Chief Ed O’Brien rightly points out that “If you have to care for an infant, even for an hour, you might need diapers and food and things like that and we need to figure those things out.”

We applaud the Legislature for changes to the state’s Safe Haven law. They are long overdue.’

INate Beeler, The Columbus Dispatch