No one had ever used it, however, until early April. When his alarm went off, Victor Andres, a firefighter, opened the box and found, to his disbelief, a newborn boy wrapped in towels. The discovery was made public on local television, which praised the mother’s courage, calling it a “time for celebration.” Later that month, Mr. Andres pulled another newborn, a girl, from the box. A third baby appeared in May. By summer, three more infants were left at baby box locations across the state. Baby boxes are part of the safe haven movement, which has long been closely associated with anti-abortion activism. Safe havens offer desperate mothers a way to anonymously surrender their newborns for adoption and, advocates say, avoid hurting, abandoning or even killing them. Shelters can be boxes, which allow parents to avoid talking to or even being seen by anyone when they deliver their babies. More traditionally, shelters are locations such as hospitals and fire stations where staff members are trained to accept a face-to-face transfer from a parent in crisis. All 50 states have safe haven laws that protect surrogate mothers from criminal charges. The first, known as the “Baby Moses” law, was passed in Texas in 1999 after some women abandoned babies in garbage cans or garbage. But what began as a way to prevent the most extreme cases of child abuse has become a wider phenomenon, particularly supported among the religious right, which heavily promotes adoption as an alternative to abortion. In the past five years, more than 12 states have passed laws allowing baby boxes or expanding safe haven options in other ways. And safe haven deliveries, reproductive health and child welfare experts say, are likely to become more common after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. During the oral arguments in Dobbs v. In the court’s ruling, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. cited safe haven laws as a “modern development” that, in the majority’s view, eliminated the need for abortion rights. But for many adoption and women’s health experts, safe havens are not a panacea. To them, a delivery safe haven is a sign that a woman has fallen through the cracks of existing systems. They may have hidden their pregnancy and given birth without prenatal care, or they may be suffering from domestic violence, drug addiction, homelessness, or mental illness. Adoptions themselves could also be problematic, with women potentially unaware that they are terminating parental rights and children left with little information about their parentage.
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If a parent uses a safe haven, “there’s been a crisis and the system has already failed in some way,” said Ryan Hanlon, president of the National Council on Adoption.
Strengthening the Movement
Save Haven deliveries are still rare. The National Safe Haven Alliance estimates that 115 legal deliveries took place in 2021. In recent years, there have been over 100,000 domestic adoptions annually and more than 600,000 abortions. Studies show that the vast majority of women who are denied an abortion are not interested in adoption and continue to raise their children. But the safe haven movement has become much more visible, thanks in part to the push of a charismatic activist with roots in anti-abortion activism, Monica Kelsey, founder of Safe Haven Baby Boxes. With Ms. Kelsey and allies lobbying across the country, states like Indiana, Iowa and Virginia have sought to make safe haven deliveries easier, faster and more anonymous — allowing older babies to be separated or allowing parents to leave the scene without speaking to another adult or sharing any medical history. Some who work with safe children are particularly concerned about baby boxes. There are now over 100 across the country. “Is this infant delivered without coercion?” asked Micah Orliss, director of the Safe Delivery Clinic at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. “Is this a parent who is in a bad place and could benefit from some time and discussion in a warm transfer experience to make their decision?” Ms. Kelsey is a former doctor and firefighter and adoptee who says she was abandoned at birth by her teenage mother, who had been raped. She first encountered a “safe” baby — a concept dating back to medieval Europe — on a 2013 trip to a church in Cape Town, South Africa, where she was on an abstinence speaking tour. She returned home to Indiana to start a nonprofit, Safe Haven Baby Boxes, and installed her first baby box in 2016. To use one of Mrs. Kelsey’s boxes, a parent opens a metal drawer to reveal a temperature-controlled hospital basin. Once the baby is inside and the drawer is closed, it locks automatically. the parent cannot open it again. An alarm is activated and facility staff can access the basin. The box also sends a call to 911. Twenty-one babies have been left in the boxes since 2017, and the average time a child is in the box is less than two minutes, Ms. Kelsey said. He has raised money to put up dozens of billboards advertising the safe haven option. The ads include a photo of a handsome firefighter cradling a newborn and the Safe Haven Baby Box emergency number. Ms. Kelsey said she has been in contact with lawmakers around the country who want to bring the boxes to their districts, and she predicted that within five years, her boxes will be in all 50 states. “We can all agree that a baby should be placed in my box and not in a bin to die,” she said. Due to anonymity, there is limited information about parents who use safe havens. But Dr. Orliss, of the Los Angeles Safe Haven Clinic, performs psychological and developmental evaluations on about 15 such babies a year, often following them through childhood. His research found that more than half of children have health or developmental problems, often stemming from inadequate prenatal care. In California, unlike Indiana, safe haven deliveries must be made face-to-face, and parents are given an optional medical history questionnaire, which often reveals serious problems such as drug use. However, many children do well. Tessa Higgs, 37, a marketing executive in southern Indiana, adopted her 3-year-old daughter, Nola, after the little girl was surrendered to a safe shelter hours after she was born. Ms Higgs said the birth mother called the Safe Haven Baby Box hotline after seeing one of the group’s billboards. “From day one, she was so healthy and happy and thriving and hitting all the developmental milestones,” Ms Higgs said of Nola. “She is perfect in our eyes.”
Legal Gray Zones
For some women seeking help, the first point of contact is the Safe Haven Baby Box emergency hotline. This hotline, and another maintained by the National Safe Haven Alliance, tells callers where and how they can legally surrender children, along with information about the traditional adoption process. Safe shelter groups say they tell callers that anonymous deliveries are a last resort and give information on how to keep their babies, including ways to get diapers, rent money and temporary child care. “When a woman is given options, she will choose what is best for her,” Ms Kelsey said. “And if that means that in a moment of crisis she chooses a box of babies, we should all support her decision.” But Ms. Kelsey’s hotline does not talk about legal time limits on reuniting with the baby unless callers ask, she said. In Indiana, which has the most baby boxes, state law does not specify a timeline for terminating birth parents’ rights after safe haven delivery or adoption. But according to Don VanDerMoere, the district attorney in Owen County, Ind., who has experience with infant abandonment laws in the state, biological families are free to file a report until a court terminates parental rights, which can to occur 45 to 60 days after an anonymous delivery. Because these waivers are anonymous, they usually lead to closed adoptions. Birth parents do not get to choose the parents, and adoptees are left with little to no information about their family of origin or medical history. Mr. Hanlon, of the National Adoption Council, pointed to research showing that in the long run, birth parents feel more satisfied about giving up their children if biological and adoptive families maintain a relationship. And in safe cases, if a mother changes her mind, she must prove to the state that she is fit. According to Ms Kelsey, since her operation began, two women who said they had placed their babies in boxes have tried to regain custody of their children. Such cases can take months or even years to resolve. Birth mothers also aren’t immune from legal risks and may not be able to navigate the technicalities of each state’s safe haven law, said Laurie Bruce, a Yale medical ethicist. While many states protect surrendering mothers from criminal prosecution if the babies are healthy and intact, mothers in serious crisis—for example, dealing with addiction or domestic abuse—may not be protected if their newborns are affected in some way. The idea of a traumatized, postpartum mother who can “correctly cougar the laws is tenuous,” Ms. Bruce said. With Roe’s death, “we know we’re going to see more abandoned babies,” she added. “My concern is that it means more prosecutors will be able to prosecute women for abandoning their children safely — …
