Missouri Safe Haven FAIL

Reformatina covered some of the issues with Safe Havens here in September 2011. Heed her words about wiping away the child’s history…

Now a new Missouri case highlights (again) the false hopes for this type of law.

Missouri rethinking safe haven law [St. Louis Today 3/14/12 by Nancy Cambria] says that Missouri lawmakers believe that a misunderstanding of the law is why a woman recently abandoned her baby by a pine tree. We believe that this is ridiculous. Most people who abandon a child in this manner are in a panicked-state of mind. The article even says that she was panicked. People in that state of mind do not have a “misunderstanding” of laws nor do they necessarily want their child to be adopted. But PLENTY of PAPs are begging to adopt this child…

“On the same day a young mother was criminally charged last month with abandoning her new baby boy under a pine tree in Ellisville, lawmakers gathered in a Jefferson City hearing room to discuss better ways to prevent such a thing from happening.

“The Ellisville baby was very much on our minds,” explained Debby Howland, a proponent of a bill that would increase the scope of Missouri’s existing Safe Haven Law and simplify its terms so mothers aren’t afraid of using it.

Missouri’s current law seeks to enable mothers to relinquish custody of a baby up to 5 days old at a designated safe haven, such as a hospital or firehouse, anonymously and without fear of prosecution.

Proponents of the bill say that the window isn’t long enough and want to expand it to 45 days — a national average for such laws. They also want to clarify questions over legal immunity and anonymity in the existing law that could discourage parents from placing an infant in a safe haven.

Howland, coordinator of the Kansas City Child Abuse Roundtable Coalition, testified on behalf of the proposed changes in the House Children and Families Committee on Feb. 28, the same day Kaitlin Norton, 19, was charged with child abandonment and child endangerment for allegedly leaving her newborn wrapped in a towel on an Ellisville lawn after giving birth. Bail was set at $40,000. If found guilty, Norton would face at least five years in prison before possible parole and could receive a maximum jail sentence of 15 years.

“Had she only known there was a legal way to do the right thing,” Howland said.

If Norton had left her child at a legal safe haven, she likely wouldn’t be facing incarceration, and the baby’s life wouldn’t have been put at risk, Howland said.

After she was charged, Norton’s lawyer told the Post-Dispatch his client panicked after delivering the baby Feb. 16 alone in the basement laundry room of her boyfriend’s home. In behavior common to cases of infant abandonment, Norton had hidden the pregnancy.

About two hours after the birth, a nearby resident spotted the towel — and what she thought were abandoned puppies wrapped inside — and called police. The baby is now in custody of the Department of Social Services and is expected to be adopted.

‘SIMPLE AS POSSIBLE’
It’s unknown if Norton was aware of the Safe Haven Law. But advocates of the bill worry that even when desperate moms know of it, the law isn’t clear enough about the limits of punishment or the use of police, and that may scare them away.

It’s difficult to prove to police and doctors that a newborn is less than 6 days old during a drop-off, and that can lead to unwanted scrutiny by police and possible prosecution of the mother, said Suzie Girten, a maternal care nurse at St. Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City.

The bill seeks to clarify standards by which the anonymity of the mother is kept and stipulates that the mother’s identity cannot be demanded.

It also aims to simplify the prosecution issue.

Missouri’s current law not only has a five-day window for using a safe haven after birth, but it also applies to mothers with babies less than a year old. Yet mothers who relinquish babies older than 5 days are not fully protected from prosecution for child abandonment. Instead, the current law entitles mothers to an “affirmative defense” — a legal term that requires the court to take into consideration that the mother put the safety of her child first in choosing to use a haven.

“We realized very quickly that no one, including those working in safe havens, understood what affirmative defense even was,” Howland said. “The fact that we have had so much misunderstanding and misinterpretation has been a barrier to women using the law.”

Nick Silverio, a national proponent of safe havens, said affirmative defense, though intended to encourage desperate mothers to use a safe haven, is an unintended deterrent. It can lead to dangerous child abandonment and should never be a part of such laws, he said.

In Florida, where Silverio is based, the state’s Safe Haven Law further stipulates the babies go directly to private adoption agencies. [Yikes!] This, said Silverio, keeps state child welfare investigators and police out of the dynamic. In Missouri, babies go into the custody of the Department of Social Services and foster care, where various court and legal entities take over.

“The law needs to be as simple as possible,” Silverio said, noting language that allows police inquiries or the sharing of the mother’s information with various agencies will deter the use of safe havens.

“What’s the bottom line here for these laws? The bottom line is we’re trying to save lives,” he said.

The bill under consideration in Missouri originally eliminated the use of affirmative defense in exchange for increasing the window to use a safe haven to 45 days.

But at the urging of Rep. Jay Barnes, R-Jefferson City, a substitute version of the bill currently maintains an affirmative defense clause for mothers who relinquish babies age 45 days to one year.

Barnes said he did not want to put additional babies at risk by limiting the law to just the 45-day window. The substitute bill is now with the House Rules Committee.

Rep. Kevin McManus, D-Kansas City, who sponsored the bill, said the substitute is a trade-off he can live with.

“The five days was a very narrow window of time,” he said. “This allows us a wider window and at the same times gives added protections up to a year.”

TRAINING IS KEY

Bill proponents argue Missouri’s Safe Haven Law needed revision given several cases of newborn abandonment.

In three local cases, living newborns were found in trash bins in alleyways and behind a St. Charles County fast-food restaurant. Grass clippings, other refuse and even a sealed plastic trash bag were credited with keeping the babies insulated and alive.

But in other cases, abandoned babies did not beat the odds.

Child advocates in the Kansas City area first pushed to strengthen Missouri’s Safe Haven Law in 2009 after a 25-year-old woman in nearby Overland Park, Kan., delivered her child alone and hid the baby girl in an unused refrigerator in her parents’ basement, where the baby died. A firehouse safe haven was just three blocks from the home. The incident led both states to review their laws, Howland said.

Safe havens have been used 31 times since 2005, according to statistics kept with the Missouri Department of Social Services. But a state spokesman cautioned that number could be higher because employees at safe havens don’t always fill out state paperwork identifying the abandonment as such.

Indeed, Missouri, like many states, has not done a good job tracking the law’s usage, nor has it properly trained safe haven workers in basic aspects of the law, said Girten, the Kansas City nurse. In most cases, it’s unknown if mothers who used the havens went on to be outed or prosecuted.

Girten said even the best-crafted safe haven laws are ineffective without training and public awareness — which are lacking in Missouri.

After the baby died in Overland Park, advocates in the Kansas City area created billboard campaigns and signs to mark safe havens. They also developed training at safe havens for employees, everyone from emergency room nurses to cleaning staff. Girten also helped develop a safe haven Web page that enables employees to directly report a safe haven baby to the Department of Social Services to ensure that the baby is tallied.

Although typically a mother doesn’t stick around to talk, Girten encourages safe haven workers to give her two things.

The first is a letter thanking her for making the brave decision to protect her child. [Wow, what assumptions are made when that is handed to a mother!Do they ask the woman if she needs assistance or do they happily take the baby?]

The second: a blank sheet of paper and a pen.

“It’s a great gift from Mom to write a letter to the baby,” she said.

The bill is HB1568.”

REFORM Puzzle Piece

These laws mainly are about when to prosecute the mother and which entity gets dibs on placement of the child.

Assisting the mother, mother/child or understanding the child’s needs for his/her history do not seem to be part of this “Safe Haven” concept.

The assumption that abandoning a child in a panicked state is tacit approval for adoption is wrong.