Category Archives: Baby Abandonment/Safe Haven

Discussion newborn abandonment and “safe haven”laws

MASSACHUSETTS: BABY SAFE HAVEN ADVOCATE CHARGED WITH DOMESTIC ASSAULT

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Maybe he shoulda been safe havened. From the Make My Day department: Baby Safe Haven advocate charged with domestic assaultBy Ian B. MurphyGateHouse News ServicePosted Jun 11, 2008 @ 05:52 PM ——————————————————————————– LEXINGTON, Mass. —Lexington resident Jean Morrisey, the co-founder of Baby Safe Haven New England, was arraigned on charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon at Concord District Court last week. According to police reports, officers arrived at Morrisey’s home after her juvenile son called 911 June 4. Morrisey allegedly threw a drinking glass which hit her son in the head. He was treated at Winchester Hospital for a one-and-a-half inch cut. Morrisey was arraigned June 5 at Concord District Court and was released under the condition that no further abuse occurs. Michael Morrisey, Jean Morrisey’s husband, said their son was “released back to our custody in a matter of hours.” According to the police report, a nurse at Winchester Hospital recommended the juvenile spend the night in the hospital’s care. The report also said the original argument between mother and son started over a bottle of shampoo. Baby Safe Haven New England is an organization to promote the baby safe haven law, which was enacted in Continue Reading →

THE CALIFORNIA LESSON: WHY SAFE HAVEN PROPONENTS OPPOSE SAFE HAVEN EXPANSION TIMES

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I thought readers might be interested to know why proponents California’s “safe surrender” law oppose the expansion of time in which a “desperate parent” can drop off a baby from 3 to 7 days (or beyond). It’s probably too much to hope for, but perhaps some of California’s foremost safe haven boosters see where this is going, and don’t want any part of it–like Nebraska’s new law which permits anyone to anonymously drop off a child of any age. Inquiring minds want to know where kitchen table “safe haven” organizations stand on the California and Ohio expansion bills, and certainly what the National Safe Haven Alliance and NCFA thinks about them–if anything. I’ve found no commentary from pushers on expansion. Below is a revised copy of “The California Lesson” which I attached to my May 13 opposition testimony before the Ohio Senate Health, Human Resources, and Aging Committee. (see Bastardette, May 16). which gives extensive quotes from The Opposition Party. THE CALIFORNIA LESSON California’s Safely Surrendered Baby Act is very similar to Ohio’s Deserted Infant Act. It includes a 72-hour limit on the age that babies can be abandoned legally. In 2006 and 2007, legislators in California attempted to expand Continue Reading →

OHIO: STATE SECRETS PROTECT DEADBEAT DUMPERS

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On May 13, Erik Smith and I testified before the Ohio Senate Health, Human Services, and Aging Committee in opposition of SB 304 which will expand the time “desperate parents” can legally dump their baby from three days to thirty. This was the fifth hearing. I’ve been unable to attend the others, but I wanted to get a few words in before the inevitable happened. Ohio isn’t exactly adoptee friendly. (see blog below) Oddly, I was told that no one had presented oral testimony either for or against the bill, though the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services and Ohio Right to Life (who else!) supported it. After our testimony on Wednesday, Greg Kapcar, Assistant Leg Director for the Public Children’s Services Association of Ohio gave proponent testimony. (Jim McCafferty, director of Cuyahoga County CS who loves safe havens, is on PCSAO’s board). Kapcar was especially excited about an amendment added at Wednesday’s hearing to authorize baby dumping promotion, though when asked what kind of promotion was planned he didn’t know–exactly. Prompted by my earlier testimony that there was no evidence that babies 72 hours or older were being abandoned or killed in the state (which falls right in Continue Reading →

HAWAI’I: BASTARD NATION LETTER TO GOV. LINGLE:–PLEASE VETO HB 1830 BABY DUMP

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Bastard Nation has faxed the following letter to Gov. Linda Lingle. Lingle vetoed a similar bill in 2003. May 22, 2007 The Honorable Linda LingleGovernor, State of Hawai`iExecutive ChambersState CapitolHonolulu, Hawai’i96813 RE: HB 1830: Safe Haven/”Safe Place for Newborns”—Please Veto Dear Governor Lingle: Bastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights Organization urges you to continue to reject enactment of so-called “Safe Haven laws” in Hawai’i and to veto HB 1830. Bastard Nation agrees whole-heartedly with your June 20, 2003 veto statement in which you assert that “legalized abandonment” subverts hanai and traditional Hawai’ian family practice and values. “Safe Havens” endanger all families. There is no epidemic of newborn abandonment and neonaticide in Hawai’i. Even “Safe Haven” proponents admit this. An archive search of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin indicates that since 1996 there has been one reported prosecutable newborn death (manslaughter in Koloa, Kaua’i) and no reported cases of unsafe newborn abandonment. What need then is there to legalize newborn abandonment when illegal abandonment doesn’t happen? The mechanistic anonymous “Safe Haven” system of infant abandonment rejects the long-standing Hawai’ian cultural practice of extended family care. Moreover, HB 1830 rejects informed consent and best practice standards of child welfare such as the collection of a Continue Reading →

AN INTERVIEW WITH ERIK L. SMITH: SAFE HAVEN LAWS ARE IRRESPONSIBLE, WRONG, INEFFECTIVE, AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL

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Bastardette has once more become distracted by the ways of the world and has not been able to write lately. Her good friend, natural parents advocate Erik Smith has leapt into the lurch and offered us an interview on his views of Safe Haven/Baby Moses Laws. The interview was conducted a few months ago by a student from the University of Nebraska-Omaha INTERVIEW WITH ERIK L. SMITH — SAFE HAVEN LAW UNO student interview, April 2005 What do you think of safe haven laws? I think safe haven laws are irresponsible, wrong, ineffective, andunconstitutional. I mainly oppose anonymity. I am confident safe havenlaws do not save lives. Most adoption professionals oppose them too becausethe laws prey on people’s ignorance of child welfare law and policy. Consider the following analogy: A person lets his children starve to death. The accused claims he saw noother option because he was ashamed to apply for welfare and that hisfriends and relatives might find out he was not self-supporting. Thelegislature then proposes a law that lets anyone who feels ashamed of usingfood stamps get welfare automatically and anonymously because it willdecrease shoplifting and child starvation. If it saves just one life itwill be worth it. Continue Reading →

THE FOX WATCHES THE HENHOUSE IN ILLINOIS

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An interesting tidbit came across in Friday’s Bloomington Pantagraph. In an editorial entitled “State’s safe haven law proven benefit for babies” the Pantagraph reveals that the safe haven advocacy group Save Abandoned Babies Foundation, is compiling baby abandonment stats for the State of Illinois. Huh? As a Beltway lobbyist friend of Bastardette’s pointed out, “Do you think the White House would let Planned Parenthood collect family planning data?” At this point, we can only go by what the editorial says, but this is not the first time this allegation has been made. An AP story in the May 17, 2005 edition of the Chicago Defender and other papers mentions that SABF “compiles information on the issue for state government.” If the merry band of amateurs at Save Abandoned Babies Foundation is collecting data for the state in an official capacity, it is a direct conflict of interest, since SABF is not only the leading advocate and “educator” for safe havens, but SABF gang banger, Chicago Fire Commissioner Cortez Trotter, has also been quoted as saying the safe haven law sunset needed to be repealed two years early, making the law permanent, so advocates could raise money for their organization. If Continue Reading →

SAFE HAVEN IN SOUTH CAROLINA: IT’S A GOD THING

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We’re all familiar with the idea that adoptees are God’s Gifts–to adopters that is. How many times do we read sappy stories in the newspapers, especially around Mothers Day and Christmas, about how we have fulfilled other people’s lives. Created their joy and happiness. Are God’s little gifts. I don’t remember my own adoptive parents talking like that. Ever! (As a sidenote my birth mother adopted two children and my birth father adopted his stepson, and neither of them ever treated these kids like they were little miracles either.) But then, that was back in the old days when adoptive parents didn’t feel they had to brag their good deeds 24/7, adoption wasn’t a major part of dinnertable discussion, and adoptees, if they were smart, kept their mouths shut. Alas! No more! Now adoption has been outted as THE celeb-trendy way to make a family. It’s as popular as Walmart with everybody boasting about their baybee saving–as if stranger infant adoption were about rescuing us from the jaws of the trash compactor. One of the more pernicious aspects of all this is the idea that we, as a class, were created by God for some good purpose–unlike the rest of Continue Reading →

PIZZA FOR BABY DUMPS

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Well stick Bastardette’s head in a pizza oven! On May 10, just in time for Mother’s Day, the Morriseys–the Massachusetts Baby Dump People–have joined forces with Alexander’s Pizza and Nick’s Place in Lexington–to raise money to teach new mothers how to painlessly abandon their bay-bees. According to the April/May 2005 issue of Lexington’s Colonial Times Magazine,the restaurants will donate proceeds from all pizza and sub sales after 4 PM that day to support the Morrisey’s “Baby Safe Haven Yes” propaganda machine….errrr…..we mean….advertising campaign to convince “desperate mothers” to enthusiastically and anonymously turn their “unwanted babies” over to the state for redistribution to equally “desperate” paps looking for newborns unencumbered by pesky birth parents. According to the article, the latest blitz will include more PSAs, lit-drops, and transit advertising. While the article is not online, it can be Googled on the Internet newsgroup alt.adoption via the good offices of the Morriseys who never miss a chance to crow their own. This deeply American couple has single-handedly huckstered their way into the media and turned the tragedy of baby abandonment into a commercial sideshow heretofore unknown outside of guided tours of 875 S. Bundy Drive, excursions to the Lindbergh home, and Sam Continue Reading →

PIMPING BABY MATTHEW–SAVE ABANDONED BABIES DAY

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Domestic tranquility continues to elude Bastardette. Did my parents ever have these problems? I think not! But then they were responsible adults. More catch-up today. It’s that time of year again. April 11. Pimp Baby Matthew….er, I mean Save Abandoned Babies Day. For the third year now, the Illinois-based Save Abandoned Babies Foundation has staged this laudatory dollar harvesting event where “saved” babies are paraded around like a new pair of Sunday shoes and their anonymous,invisible mothers who “legally abandoned” them through the state’s Abandoned Newborn Infant Protection Act, are back-patted by police, politicians, professional do-gooders, and adopters. Words such as “brave,” “courageous,” “loving,” and “responsible” get thrown at these unknown women faster than a sidewalk hooker works a traffic jam. It is assumed that if these unfortunate mothers didn’t possess one or more of those sterling Republican qualities they’d drown, smother, stab, shoot, bash, or garrot their “inconvenient” newborns. The term “adoption plan” never enters the heads of the bay-bee savers. Ditto the subversive idea that with help “desperate mothers” (the favored descriptor) could keep their babies if they wanted to instead of depending on the kindness of the nearest cop shop. In the weird Manachaen world view of Continue Reading →

TOUGH DECISIONS: THE DUMPSTER OR THE ADOPTION AGENCY?

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A few days ago employees in the pick-through room of a thrift shop in Birmingham, Alabama found the body of a newborn. The unfortunate discovery was met with the usual vexation and confusion amongst the town’s metro types. An exception, was Tammy Gardner, a book pricer at the store. Upon discovery of the body, Miss Tammy, who also holds prayer meetings and Bible study for employees. threw an impromptu prayer service at the facility. “I just told them that it’s a terrible, awful thing, but we don’t have to worry about the baby anymore (she’s) in the hands of the Lord,” she told the Birmingham News. “She’ll never feel pain or hurt or fear….We prayed for justice. God says vengeance is His and He will repay.” Bastardette, having lived a couple of years in a small deep south town during her misspent youth, finds this gothic response to the tragedy familiar and comfortable–a simple response that doesn’t flog the air with theoretical arguments and professional meddling. A thoroughly unmodern attitude. A few days later, a letter appeared in the Birmingham News. Tom Cook, Director of Catholic Family Services, prompted by the tragic discovery, wanted to remind people–especially women–of services to Continue Reading →