HAWAI’I: LINGLE DUMPS THE DUMP–VETOES HB1830

According to the HI legislative page, this afternoon Gov. Lingle vetoed HB1830–the Safe Haven bill. Her veto statement is not yet linked, but you can go here for verification of the veto and to look later for her statement.

Thanks to all who contacted Hawai’ian lawmakers and voiced your views against safe havens.

If you have not done so, fax, email, call and ask Hawai’ian legislators to let the veto stand and oppose an override. Tell them to stand up for the rights of Hawai’ian children, families and adoptees. See BN’s Action Alert dated July 9 (just below “New Hampshire: Battin’ 1000!”) for contact information.

And don’t forget to thank Governor Lingle, too:
The Honorable Linda Lingle
Governor, State of Hawai`
Executive Chambers
State Capitol
Honolulu, Hawai`i96813

Phone: 808-586-0034
Fax: 808-586-0006
e-mail: [email protected]

**********
Dear__________

RE: HB 1830 Safe Haven Override

Dear_______________

Please do not support the override of HB1830, the Safe Haven Act. Safe Haven laws are detrimental to children, families and ethical child surrender and adoption.

For decades adoption reformers and all but a few secretive adoption professionals have fought to create transparent, accountable child surrender and adoption practices and policies such as ethical counseling for natural parents, adult adoptee access to original birth certificates, and open adoption– all of which acknowledge the right of identity, history, and heritage of children placed for adoption.

Safe Havens deny these best practice standards. They circumvent uniform best practice child surrender procedures such as the collection of the child’s identifying information, social, cultural and medical history. They thwart due process for parents—especially the father. They devalue communication and ethical counseling. They refute responsible legal alternatives to baby dumping: public assistance, temporary surrender, and permanent surrender for adoption.

“Safe Haven” Hawai’an-style rejects hanai: extended family and community care. Not only will Native Hawai’ians, “surrendered” through the anonymous system be denied their native heritage but also benefits to which the are entailed to legally since they will unable able to prove eligibility

Since 1996 there has been one media-reported prosecutable newborn death and no reported cases of unsafe newborn abandonment in Hawai’i . Even “safe haven” proponents agree that newborn abandonment in the state is negligible. Incredibly, though, they insist that unless HB1830 is enacted “confused parents” will be “forced” to use The Dumpster to get rid of their “problem,” even if they don’t use it now.

Why “fix” something that’s not broken?

Baby dumping is not an acceptable cultural practice in Hawai’i now. No law should make it acceptable for the future.

Reject HB 1830 and support Hawaii’s families.

Yours truly,