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Almost a decade has passed since Wisconsin was one of the first states to pass laws allowing mothers to surrender their babies anonymously at police stations, hospitals or other locations, no questions asked. The state’s “Safe Haven” law was passed in the wake of a national epidemic of infant abandonment and infanticide. Does the program work? It’s credited with saving more than a 100 babies, but critics argue it can be subverted and used to dodge traditional adoption proceedings.

The state program is headquartered on Milwaukee’s north side at St. Joseph’s Hospital, where a large percentage of Safe Haven surrenders occur. In 2008, the last year official statistics are available, 12 of the 24 babies surrendered in the state were brought to St. Joseph’s. The law is intended to act as safety net for desperate mothers.

But earlier this month, a woman who worked at a Perkins restaurant in Racine was arrested on charges that she gave birth in the restaurant’s bathroom, sealed the living baby in a plastic bag and threw it into a dumpster, where the baby died.

“Clearly, we still have work to do,” says Tricia Burkett, the director of the Wisconsin chapter of Safe Place for Newborns, a national nonprofit that helps implement and promote Safe Haven laws. She’s planning a billboard campaign in Racine. “This is also a crime prevention program,” she adds.

Although the program has taken in over 100 babies since its inception in 2001, 17 babies were abandoned in the same period, and only two of them survived, according to Burkett. Other states are more flexible in where and when parents and surrenders their babies.

More strict in Wisconsin

Wisconsin’s law allows a much shorter period of time, just three days, for parents to surrender a baby than in other states. Illinois gives them 30 days, and a few states allow an entire year. Wisconsin is also relatively strict in where it allows babies to be surrendered, only to hospital staff, police, on-duty firefighters or by calling 911. Wisconsin’s law also allows women to deliver their baby in a hospital and then relinquish the child.

Some states allow parents to drop their infants off at churches instead of hospitals. Other Safe Haven laws, like the one in New York, are much vaguer, only requiring parents to find “an appropriate person at a suitable location.”

Safe Place for Newborns was originally located in Madison. But because so many of the babies relinquished in the state are given to St. Joseph’s, the non-profit moved its headquarters to the hospital. The group has promoted the Safe Haven law on bus ads, flyers, college campuses and through the training of health care workers or others who might find themselves accepting the babies. The number of babies accepted has increased in the state from six in 2002, the law’s first full year, to 24 in 2008. So far, all of the babies have been adopted by parents, most within six or eight months of birth.

Burkett says many women don’t give clear reasons for why they’re handing over their infant and terminating their parental rights. Some say they were impregnated by sexual assault, says Burkett. Others say they’re not prepared to wade through the legalities of putting the baby up for adoption. “Many of the mothers I have counseled don’t feel that they can wait that long. They are in crisis and need to make a decision immediately,” she says.

Criticisms of Safe Haven

Opponents of Safe Haven laws say their life-saving powers are greatly exaggerated. “The Safe Haven law has never saved a life.  Choosing not to end a life does not equate to saving a life,” says Erik Smith, an Ohio paralegal who became a prominent national critic of adoption law after he fought unsuccessfully in 1993 to stop the adoption of his son, a process begun by the boy’s mother.

Smith argues that Safe Haven laws, which, as of 2008, had been adopted in all 50 states, violate federal law. He says they frustrate the purposes of the federal Indian Child Welfare and Adoption and Safe Families acts, both of which require that child welfare agencies make diligent attempts to place children with relatives before searching for unrelated parents.  “How can due diligence be used when the State lets the parent withhold their identity?” he says.

Safe Haven relinquishments can also be an excuse for parents (typically mothers) to dodge contested adoptions, meaning they can purposely avoid the possibility of the father or some other relative caring for the baby by secretly surrendering the child to authorities, according to Smith.

In Wisconsin, the law offers a protection against such a subversion of the law – fathers can reclaim their baby if they discover the child was surrendered against their will and they meet standards for taking the baby back (including asking for the child within a reasonable time frame).

Some adoption professionals say that Safe Haven laws lead to children being raised without any idea of their heritage or history. Donna Strayer, director of Adoption Services Inc. in Mequon, an adoption agency, says she’s glad that the Safe Haven law gives an out to mothers in dire straits, but notes, ”Kids are going to grow up without any knowledge of their backgrounds.”

Many children adopted through more traditional means face the same lack of knowledge due to absent fathers or little information left by mothers. Some Safe Haven mothers leave a letter or other identifying information; but this is the exception, and anonymity is the rule.

Safe Place for Newborns national hotline can be reached at 877-440-2229, and the number for the Wisconsin office is 414-447-3030.

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