News abounds about babies being left at the side of a river or the foot of a church door and in some cases, it ends up in a case of infanticide. The airport’s restroom, at the most inconspicuous nook inside a passenger bus, or worse, inside trash bins. Babies are dumped everywhere. Or killed.
The latest incident of an “abandoned” baby was in Kentucky. It was its first infant anonymously dropped off at one of its “baby box” safe surrender locations.
However, this was different. The baby wasn’t “dumped” just anywhere. It was left inside a Safe Haven baby box.
At a news conference, Safe Haven Baby Boxes founder and CEO Monica Kelsey said the child was dropped off within the last seven days at a Bowling Green Fire Department location, declining to be more specific to protect anonymity. She said fire department staff was able to tend to the child in less than 90 seconds.
The child is the 24th in the country to be surrendered at one of more than 130 baby boxes the organization has established across nine states.
Infanticide
Each year newborns are illicitly abandoned in the U.S. In 2021 alone, 31 babies were placed in dumpsters, found in backpacks, or discarded in other dangerous locations. Twenty-two of these infants were found deceased. These should be treated as cases of infanticide.
Seventy-three babies were saved by Safe Haven laws in 2021.
Abandoning a baby is illegal in the US. However, the safe haven law legalizes the act, if the baby is passed into safe hands. Texas was the first place to pass the law in 1999, and all 49 other states followed.
The law provides safe options for a parent that may be unable or unwilling to care for their infant. The Safe Haven Laws allow a parent to anonymously relinquish an unharmed baby to a Safe Haven Provider and the parent will not be prosecuted.
The law provides a distressed parent with a safe alternative and saves the life of a vulnerable infant.
Every state has a Safe Haven law, which means there are ways for a mother or a father to carefully surrender an unharmed newborn baby without any risk of persecution. However, the laws aren’t the same in every state, so it’s important to check each state for details.
How the box works
The boxes, typically installed at a fire station or hospital, are devices people can use to surrender their babies. Once they open the box, it triggers an alarm alerting personnel that a baby needs to be picked up. Once the baby is inside, it’s locked. The boxes are fitted with temperature regulators and sensors to keep the child safe until someone arrives within less than three minutes.
“They are a last resort,” insists Priscilla Pruitt, who works for Safe Haven Baby Boxes, a campaigning organization that has been pushing for their introduction across the country. The group says the boxes are needed to combat infanticide when mothers – often young and fearful – give birth alone and are unable to cope.
From 1999 to 2021, at least 4,505 infants were surrendered through safe haven laws nationwide, according to the most recent report from the National Safe Haven Alliance.
Currently, there are 134 active baby boxes in the United States. The idea is to stop infanticide.
The Inventor
Monica Kelsey.
“It’s more of a personal mission for me, simply because I was that abandoned child as an infant,” Kelsey said. “My birth mom was 17 years old and two hours after giving birth to me, she abandoned me.”
With the boxes’ existence, abandonment rates have dropped. “I think now that we’re changing the narrative, I think people are starting to realize that it’s okay to place a child for adoption. It’s okay to not want to parent and find a loving family for your child,” Kelsey said.