Pros And Cons Of Safe Havens

A local woman calls law enforcement after hearing a knock at 4:26a.m. Opening it she found a newborn infant laying on her door step. According to the reports from authorities, the infant was lying on a white towel wearing nothing and only appeared to be only two hours old. The infant was rushed by ambulance to the hospital where she was treated for hypothermia. Unfortunately child abandonment cases like the one fore mentioned is not uncommon and pose a huge form of child neglect that can lead to death. Before 1999 cases like this was common in many states such as Texas. Statistics show that one out of 3 did not stand a chance at life. Thus the Safe Haven (“Baby Moses”) law was implemented to aid in minimizing acts of child abandonment and infant deaths; by giving parents a place to safely relinquish custody in the allotted timeframe provided by their state without criminal charges.
The Safe Haven benefits the rights of children and it keeps them from being harmed. The one thing that the policy does not include is absolute immunity. In certain states if a baby is unharmed the parent(s) are safe. In other states if the baby is safe the parent(s) receive affirmative defense against the law. In any
Part of a parent's responsibility is to meet the basic needs of a child, including food, shelter, cloth them, and access to medical care. These laws also hurt more than they help by actually encouraging women to abandon their babies. You just may as well call safe havens just as others may have called it a “baby dump”. At one point in time it was illegal for parent who abandons a child can be charged with child neglect, abandonment, or child abuse. Now under the safe haven or “baby Moses” law, criminal accountability is no longer an issue and claims to be an alternative to child abandonment if the child is brought to a location within a set time