NAM/NAAM Day 8: Angelika's Corner: Save Haven Baby Boxes are Amenities?

Yes, you read that right. Amenities.

Yesterday (November 7, 2023) the new EMS Building in Moundsville, West Virginia officially opened. Included with the new building is a brand new Safe Haven Baby Box. During the box blessing, SHBB founder and CEO Monica Kelsey made the most pretentious statement. Speaking of the box’s relation to the state’s traditional safe haven law, she said:

This just brings an amenity into the picture. It allows the parent to do the same thing [trad SH drop-off], but to do it anonymously. So, she doesn’t have to talk to anyone, and basically, she just walks right up to the baby box, opens the door, places her child inside that’s 30 days old or younger, shuts the door, and she walks away.

Here I thought amenities were Scotch in the refrigerator, a fluffy monogrammed bathrobe in the closet, and free toiletries, breakfasts, and gym at the Hyatt. Hershey’s Nuggets on the pillow are also nice. Godiva Truffles, better.

Maybe Mrs. Kelsey, in her peripatetic journey across the US to make it a Jesus-approved easier place to abandon your baby, has been staying at upscale hotels with an upscale mobile check-in where she doesn’t have to mess with bothersome registration cards and printouts and can move directly into her comfortable and secure room. Come to think of it, mobile check-in sounds like a 2nd cousin of the baby box procedure, where “desperate moms” can just walk up to the box, drop in Baby Bumble, and hi-tail it back to her own comfortable and secure space. Maybe she’s even got a bottle of Scotch.

Misappropriated language, false claims, cooked books, and lowbrow spectacles wear thin.

If I hear “you guys” one more time at a box blessing, or on TikTok I will fear I will choke up a hairball. If I hear one more time that baby boxes decrease state infant mortality rates, SHBB Inc doesn’t take taxpayer money, or “this mom loves her baby so much that she didn’t kill it,know I will.

MEOW!

Angelika, the Personal Assistant Cat is happy to participate in NAM/NAAM/Poblano Month. See more of my work on Stop Safe Haven Baby Boxes Now!