Comments on: Baby Found in Dumpster

By: KatjaMichelle

KatjaMichelle — Fri, 09 May 2008 03:05:04 +0000

Well the paper I did was a few quarters ago so I’ll try to expand but I’m not sure I fully remember and to be honest I don’t have time to find that paper right now. I recall some were in a dissociative state during and after childbirth, some were in a state of panic, some were in genuine fear (not just worried but truly terrified) I know one of the sources I used was from the evan b donaldson institute at some point when this quarter is not kicking my butt I’ll see if i canfind my resource list

By: Kelly

Kelly — Thu, 08 May 2008 15:41:58 +0000

Katja can you expand some more on this? I am very curious as to what the women’s circumstances were that would have prevented them from relinquishing a child through Safe Haven.

What do we do to get Safe Haven information out there? I have seen billboards, newscasts, commercials and other things promoting this. I want women to know this is an option so a child never has to go through this or die as a result. Every child deserves a shot at life.

By: KatjaMichelle

KatjaMichelle — Thu, 08 May 2008 15:19:26 +0000

I did a paper for my policy class on safe haven laws a few quarters ago. According to the research on the laws those who utilize SH are NOT the women likely to abandon their children in unsafe situations. A vast majority of women who utilize SH would have either parented or gone through traditional channels to place their baby for adoption had safe haven not been available to them. of the women interviewed who’d abandoned their babies (in dumpsters and the like) which was obviously a small sample as its hard to locate these women safe haven did not or would not have deterred them because it did not address the reasons for their actions. This is one of those issues that really needs to be dealt with at a deeper level prior to a pregnancy occurring.

By: Jenna Hatfield

Jenna Hatfield — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:55:34 +0000

The above comment rings true. A good friend of ours was first on the scene to a baby found in a dumpster about five/six years ago. (Remember, we're a fire/medic family.) The scene took place on a well-to-do college campus in Ohio. The mother, a student, didn't know about Ohio's Safe Haven law.

It doesn't excuse the action. It's still deplorable to do something like that to a newborn baby (or, any child). And not knowing the law is never an excuse for breaking the law. But these things aren't being promoted at all. I had NO idea anything existed until months after I placed when my then-boyfriend-now-husband went to training on the topic.

If people within the adoption world don't know about it, how are scared girls in crisis mode supposed to know?

(Again, not excusing action. Just calling for changes.)

By: hannah_rae

hannah_rae — Thu, 08 May 2008 04:09:14 +0000

Safe Haven laws are wonderful, but only if people know about them. I hope that this mother was acting in ignorance and not out of stupid, idiotic, evilness.

It's stories like this that make my conversations with God more desperate. I sometimes have a hard time understanding why a loving, just God would give a baby to a woman who would throw it in the trash and not give one to someone like me, who desperately wants one and can give it a loving home.

I've got a particularly bad case of the baby blues right now, so that makes it worse.

God protect that little one...and all the others who's mothers have a hard choice to make.

By: Julia Fuller

Julia Fuller — Thu, 08 May 2008 03:31:44 +0000

God is good. Isn’t it awesome that he led this man to this baby in time and made him look through a dumpster.