The so called “baby Moses” or “safe haven” laws were passed nationwide on the assurances of those advocating legalized child abandonment that unsafe child abandonments and the number of dead babies would decrease, if not stop altogether.  Now having more than a decades’ worth of a track record we see nothing could be farther from the truth.

Now with each new neonatacide or unsafe child abandonment instead of acknowleging the inherent failures of their law,  their tune has changed, insisting that these failures are mere byproducts of a “lack of educational effort” and demanding new monies be allocated to produce promotional materials, that legalized child abandonment advocates should be brought into school classrooms, and free media time be granted to their program such that women might be better taught their notion of a” best way” to abandon their children.

The human and civil rights consequences to the children who are processed through such schemes and the health concerns of their mothers are almost systematically disregarded and all too often treated as irrelevant.

In two of the cases I’m about to detail, where the mothers have been identified, they have been fortunate to receive both medical and mental health care. But had they not entered the system, as we’ll see in the third case, no follow up medical support for the mother has been possible. The baby dump laws place women in a very similar position, whereby they bring the child in, but may or may not receive any post-birth giving medical or counseling care themselves, let alone any legal counseling regarding the lifelong decision they are about to make, or counsel regarding what forms of support, financial or otherwise she may be entitled to.

So by way of follow up to my two pieces from earlier this month:

• After almost a decade, Mississippi “safe haven” legalized child abandonment scheme still fails
• A compilation of Mississippi legalized child abandonment cases and “safe haven” failures

I offer a few links about the three cases I’ve found from 2010 that pertain to the law, and it’s failures. As I summarized:

the (at least) three cases I’ll be working with will be those of:

• Linda Nash who stabbed her newborn to death. The baby was born at home; Linda says she didn’t know she was pregnant.  She’s a Type 2 diabetic, and an adoptee.
• the dead baby found in a suitcase earlier this summer
• and this latest child abandonment of a (live) child left at a Salvation Army donation drop off, outside the legalized child abandonment system

Of these three, they amount to two cases of neonatacide and one case of an illegal child abandonment  not in a designated drop point.

So I’ll begin with the tragic case of Linda Nash, (age 16.)

As I summarized, her child was born at home in Linda’s adoptive parents home. She claims to have been unaware she was pregnant at the time.

Her trial included testimony about her having been a type 2 diabetic and how such may have affected her thought process. After giving birth, she “freaked out” and stabbed the newborn to death in a panic as her adoptive mother banged on the locked bathroom door. Her parents took her to the police.

She was sentenced to the minimum amount of prison time required under Mississippi law in part due to the “mitigating circumstances” at the center of the case, Among them the revelation of the identity of the newborn’s father: her 14-year-old brother, Lewis

The Panolian search on Linda Nash provides a number of articles, I’ll include one or two below but this is the link to the full set:

http://www.panolian.com/v2/content.aspx?&MemberID=1180&module=Page&ID=481&SiteSearch=1

* WMCTV, February 1, 2010

Mississippi teen charged with stabbing newborn daughter to death

http://www.wmctv.com/global/story.asp?s=11915033

* Fox Memphis, February 1, 2010

Teen Mom Arrested for Murdering Newborn

http://www.myfoxmemphis.com/dpp/news/local/020110-teen-mom-arrested-for-murdering-newborn

* myeyewitnessnews.com, February 2, 2010

Mississippi Teen Charged with Murdering Newborn

http://www.myeyewitnessnews.com/news/local/story/Mississippi-Teen-Charged-with-Murdering-Newborn/GeMB2qS6HEilkQKh3VWhtA.cspx

* wmctv February 2, 2010

Batesville reacts in shock to murder of newborn baby

http://www.wmctv.com/global/story.asp?s=11921567

* News 3, February 3, 2010

Experts Work To Help Teen Parents Avoid Abusing Their New Born Babies

http://www.wreg.com/wreg-help-for-teens-story,0,1237091.story

* The Mississippi Link, February 5, 2010

Teen mom stabs newborn to death

http://www.mississippilink.com/news/article_9e55e72c-1278-11df-87a7-001cc4c03286.html

* The Mississippi Link August 25, 2010

Teen who stabbed newborn will go to trial

http://www.mississippilink.com/news/article_e33d2956-b005-11df-83b4-001cc4c03286.html

* Fox Memphis, Setember 17, 2010

Teen Takes Reduced Charge in Baby’s Death

http://www.myfoxmemphis.com/dpp/news/local/091710-teen-strikes-plea-deal-in-baby’s-death

* The Panolian, September 21, 2010

Prosecutor: mother killed newborn boy with scissors

http://www.panolian.com/v2/content.aspx?module=ContentItem&ID=188626&MemberID=1180

* Fox News, Oct 1, 2010

Linda Nash, Teen Convicted of Killing Newborn, Will Serve Prison Time

http://www.myfoxmemphis.com/dpp/news/local/100110-linda-nash,-teen-convicted-of-killing-newborn,-will-serve-prison-time

* The Panolian, October 5, 2010

Nash: I stabbed newborn while ‘freaked out,’ scared

http://www.panolian.com/v2/content.aspx?module=ContentItem&ID=189717&MemberID=1180

Moving on to the second case from Mississippi this year, in early July, Sheila Ealey, 41 gave birth to boy at home with no medical assistance, and then within 24 hours wrapped the live child,  the umbilical cord still attached, in a garbage bag, wrapped a blanket around it and placed it in a suitcase which was left behind her local church.

The suitcase was discovered while clearing weeds around the property. Her pregnancy had been hidden. She was already a single mother to five other children. When the body was discovered, she turned herself in.

Sheriff: Baby Found In Suitcase Was Born Alive At Home

A baby boy that was found dead in a suitcase last week was born alive, Madison County Sheriff Toby Trowbridge said on Tuesday.

The newborn was found Friday afternoon in a garbage bag, wrapped in a blanket, inside the suitcase, behind the Smith Chapel Baptist Church in the 300 block of Livingston Vernon Road in Flora, the sheriff said.

Sheila Ealey is charged with murder in connection with the boy’s death, Trowbridge said. She surrendered to authorities Friday night, he said.

Additional articles and video segments:

* WAPT.com, July 2, 2010

Woman Charged After Baby Found Dead In Suitcase

http://www.wapt.com/news/24127982/detail.html

* my601.com July 5, 2010

Flora Woman In Connection With Dead Baby In Church Graveyard Charged With Murder

http://www.my601.com/news/state/story/Dead-baby-suitcase-church/5-gFrPDCtkqbS1CAtEPjtQ.cspx

* WAPT.com July 6, 2010

Sheriff: Baby Found In Suitcase Was Born Alive At Home

http://www.wapt.com/r/24159059/detail.html

* WLBT.com, July 6, 2010

Ealey expected to appear in court Tuesday

http://www.wlbt.com/global/story.asp?s=12759037

* my601.com July 6, 2010

Family of Flora Mother Charged with Infant’s Murder: “We’re Shocked”

http://www.my601.com/mostpopular/story/Family-of-Flora-Mother-Charged-with-Infants/FN_MMpybMkqiDTpnUiBr4Q.cspx

* wjtv.com July 7, 2010

Grand Jury to Soon Hear Case of Mother Accused of Killing Infant Son

http://www2.wjtv.com/jtv/news/local/article/grand_jury_to_soon_hear_case_of_mother_accused_of_killing

_infant_son/166493/

* my 601.com July 8, 2010

$35K Bond Set for Flora Woman Accused in Baby’s Murder

http://www.my601.com/mostpopular/story/35K-Bond-Set-for-Flora-Woman-Accused-in-Babys/8fZMMlfjVkmNylg87NMLWg.cspx

* WAPT.com July 8,2010

Woman Charged In Baby’s Death Released On $35K Bond

http://www.wapt.com/r/24181335/detail.html

* WAPT.com July 9, 2010 (This piece is little more than a commercial for Bethany Christian Services, an adoption agency, but naturally, they’re happy to capitalize on the case.)

Ealey’s Situation More Common Than You May Think

http://www.wapt.com/video/24195842/detail.html

* (Also see Parents of newborn sought from October 14, 2010 that provides a slight recap at the bottom of the article.)

I’m still working to see if I can find any additional online coverage of the case after July.

Photo: Justin Lewis, WTVA

Finally, we come to the case from earlier this month of a (live) less than week old Hispanic baby left off at an unattended Salvation Army donation station wrapped up and strapped into a car seat that I blogged about at the time, see my post After almost a decade, Mississippi “safe haven” legalized child abandonment scheme still fails.

A hospital, which would have been a legal authorized “safe haven” site was less than a mile away. The child has been placed with a foster family.

* WCBI.com October 13, 2010

Baby Found Abandoned in Houston; Mother Sought

http://wcbi.com/article.php?subaction=showfull&id=1286983508&archive=&start_from=&ucat=2,40&

* WTVA October 13, 2010

Baby found at door of Salvation Army

http://www.wtva.com/news/local/story/Baby-found-at-door-of-Salvation-Army/Znx8eUfTREOa8bVbUFUDdw.cspx

* WTVA October 13, 2010

Abandoned newborn found in Houston

http://www.wtva.com/news/local/story/Abandoned-newborn-found-in-Houston/r8WhEkZukkWpwB2huFHRGg.cspx

* Hattiesburg American October 13, 2010

Baby left at Salvation Army site in Mississippi

http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/article/20101013/NEWS01/101013015/Baby-left-at-Salvation-Army-site-in-Mississippi

* myfoxmemphis, October 13, 2010

Baby Left at Salvation Army Site In Miss.

http://www.myfoxmemphis.com/dpp/news/local/101310-baby-left-at-salvation-army-site-in-miss.

*The Clarion Ledger, October 14, 2010

Parents of newborn sought

http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20101014/NEWS/10140358/Parents-of-newborn-sought

* nems360.c0m October 14, 2010

Baby abandoned at Salvation Army in Houston

http://nems360.com/bookmark/9895145

*AP October 14, 2010

Baby left at Salvation Army site in Miss.

http://www.natchezdemocrat.com/news/2010/oct/14/baby-left-salvation-army-site-miss/

* The Clarion Ledger October 14, 2010

Abandoned Mississippi baby’s parents not found

http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20101014/NEWS/101014020/Abandoned-Mississippi-baby-s-parents-not-found&template=artsemantics&server=MOC-WN0484

* The Calhoun County Journal

Parents of abandoned baby in Houston being sought

http://www.calhouncountyjournal.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3190:parents-of-abandoned-baby-in-houston-being-sought&catid=1:latest-news

To date, I see nothing to suggest the child’s parents have been identified. If they are found, the mother at least may face felony charges.

We can only hope she’s alright after having given birth in secret. Odds are, we’ll simply never know.

None of these three cases represent good outcomes for either the women or their children.

As I wrote in Emily Portellos, crimes against “women’s essentialist nature,” and the pointlessness of imprisonment:

…we as a society need to do better by them.

I’ve written repeatedly, that rather than legalized child abandonment, there could, and must be other more constructive ways of dealing with these situations.

Earlier this month, in After almost a decade, Mississippi “safe haven” legalized child abandonment scheme still fails, I wrote:

Child abandonment in other parts of the world is understood to be tangled up in a knot of social and psychological issues:

• poverty
• immigration and fear of deportation
• domestic violence
• underage parenting
• already parenting multiple children
• cultural and individual shame
• desperation
• fear of rejection
• dissociation

to name just a few.

These are merely the tip of the iceberg.

Here in America, child abandonment  is treated as a form of false binary

• either one uses the legalized child abandonment programs (which strip parental rights and in many cases the child’s identity) but it affords the “affirmative defense” against prosecution (though prosecutions in some jurisdictions are still certainly possible)
• or they abandon outside the program and are instantly branded criminals and potential murderesses (or murders)

No acknowledgement of the complexities involved or the societal infrastructures or mental health services necessary to support these families is made.

If one has come to the point of abandoning a child, it’s either avail yourself of the legalized abandonment system (and) or criminal charges, your “choice”.

Neither of which even begin to address the root issues that drove said person or persons to the act of child abandonment.

Naturally some turn up alive, others turn up dead.

Fear of women committing neonatacide is what was utilized as justification for legalizing child abandonment, and those who advocated for these laws offered them as a “solution” assuring politicians the days of dumpster babies would end.

Now all 50 states and DC have the laws on the books, but the dead babies just keep on coming.

All at the cost of the human rights of the kids who are legally abandoned and the direct cost to the health and potentially life of women who attempt to deliver in secret hoping to legally abandon.

Thus we come to today’s news, see Woman gets 10-20 in baby’s death from the Detroit Free Press.

Emily Portellos, 30, received a sentence of 10-20 years in the death of her newborn daughter.

Judge Daniel Ryan pointed out the sentence was half of what the prosecution asked for, noting that the father of the child, Robert Murphy, and his mother Marilyn Murphy, both disagreed with the prosecution’s request for a longer sentence.

The Murphys spoke on Emily’s behalf and sat with members of Emily’s family, and hugged and embraced after the sentencing.

Clearly, Emily’s case is complicated:

Christos said Portellos is not mentally retarded, but does have a learning disability and testimony showed she had difficulty making decisions under pressure, a point Ryan seconded in his verdict.

Shipping her off to jail for 10-20 years isn’t going to help anyone.

The prosecutor, leaning heavily on archetypical bad mothers, argued Portellos killed the baby out of personal  “selfishness”:

…out of fear of her mother’s disapproval and shame in the eyes of a conservative Greek Orthodox community.

The defense argued the death an accident:

A Wayne County jury took four days after a two-week trial to convict Portellos of second-degree murder and child abuse. She had been charged with first-degree murder for the death of the child on Oct. 15, 2008, in her bedroom in the home she shared with her mother and brother.

Defense lawyers countered that Portellos did not realize she was pregnant and that the child most likely bled to death through an unclamped umbilical cord.

The baby was found wrapped in towels in a garbage bag in Portellos’ blood-smeared room.

From there, it only got more complicated:

Weingarden said Portellos had to be aware of her pregnancy, especially since she had given birth before. That child was immediately given up for adoption.

The prosecutor, Lora Weingarden, then proceeded to co-opt the “voice” of the dead baby, arguing that Emily should be imprisoned throughout most of her remaining fertile years, thus stripping her of her reproductive capacity as punishment perhaps not merely for this child’s death, but in some sick version of two strikes and you’re out.

Weingarden said she was speaking on behalf of the dead child. Weingarden had argued for the longer sentence that would keep Portellos behind bars almost through her childbearing years, and would send a strong message not to kill babies.

“Most of all we ask you to do justice for this baby,” Weingarden said.

As I just finished writing earlier this month:

American society recognizes other extra legal acts more as “cries for help” or circumstances under which services rather than jail time are warranted. But child abandonment remains this all or nothing binary of a “non-bureaucratic placement” entry into the adoption system via the “safe haven/baby Moses laws” or a one way ticket to jail.

Perhaps that’s because this is viewed not merely as a women’s crime, but of the very act of women negating “women’s essentialist nature.” After all, what could be a greater crime in a hypernatalist culture such as modern day America than a woman perceived to be rejecting her “maternal instincts?”

It doesn’t matter that the perception is so often completely at odds with the details of the realities women who abandon face.

Is it any wonder then, that a female prosecutor argued the case?

Had a male prosecutor gone after Emily he could have been perceived as a bully, cruelly hounding her. A female prosecutor, on the other hand, could take on the role of the “good” woman chastising and accusing a “bad” woman; a ‘murderess who had been given another chance’ and that having resulted in a dead baby.

If neonatacides are societally viewed in America as the very act of women negating “women’s essentialist nature” then who better to argue for the harshest penalties than another woman?

The prosecuter then becomes an appropriate model of womanhood in the eyes of the state, not a woman who feels solidarity or empathy with the woman on trial, but one who stands uniquely poised to demand as cruel a sentence as this hypernatalist culture can contrive.

off_with_her_head

Nope, not “off with her head,” it’s ‘off with her ability to (hopefully) ever bear  a child again!’

When a female prosecutor co-opts the dead baby’s “voice” more than merely invoking the presence of the victim, she also retains inherent to her as a woman an embodiment of (potential or otherwise) maternal nature itself.

Outside court, Weingarden said she is disappointed by Ryan’s decision: “The sentence doesn’t reflect the seriousness of the crime.”

“I hope young women don’t take this as a license” to emulate Portellos’ actions, believing they will face a potentially lenient sentence, she said.

Some days it’s hard to even fathom the complete and utter stupidity flowing from certain people’s mouths.

Does Weingarden genuinely think for one minute other young women will read about Emily’s 10-20 year sentence and say to themselves,

‘Cool! I think I’ll go out and get pregnant and see if I can deliver a baby and have it bleed out, only to leave it wrapped in towels in a garbage bag in my blood-smeared room! After all, she got off so easy, I’m sure I can too! Nothing to worry about, I’m peachy-keen.’

While small town America can indeed get pretty boring on any given Tuesday night, somehow, I just don’t think there are girls sitting around their rooms concocting plans to come up with dead babies of their own so as to ‘only’ spend 10-20 years in prison.

Can anyone tell me with a straight face that other young women will run out to go enjoy their “license” in this manner?

The women who find themselves at the center of these cases don’t set out to end up in these circumstances because they court watch to see what kind of sentence they’d be likely to get,  or for some sick version of fun.

They find themselves here more often than not when they’ve found some point beyond the ends of their ropes.

Rather than pointlessly locking them away for decades, we as a society need to do better by them.

Перевести на русский

The big news tonight is that Russia has put a freeze on all US adoptions until Russia and the US can come to an agreement on terms relating to those inter-country adoptions, (most likely adding additional follow up for Russian children, who remain Russian citizens after adoption) and sign a treaty to that effect.

To those of us who have been following the circumstances leading up to this suspension over the course of years now, none of this comes as a surprise, particularly since Russia had come right up to this brink in the last major US/Russian adoption related incident, (see my posts on Dmitry Yakolev.)

To understand the process by which things came to this critical point, one first has to understand the broader context.

Marley Greiner/Bastardette has been tracking some of the Russian adoptee murders and other forms of abuse, such as the high profile case of Masha (”Allen”) who was adopted by pedophile Matthew Mancuso on her blog “NIKTO NE ZABYT — NICHTO NE ZABYTO/Nobody is forgotten. Nothing is forgotten. A memoriam for Russian adoptees abused and murdered by their forever families.”

Be certain to see her overview Cases: Forever Family, Forever Dead.

Scrolling back through the posts and cases provides a great deal of background to how this level of frustration and anger has built over time.

Also be sure to see her overview of the consequences (and lack thereof) to the adoptive parents, The Russian Adopted Dead: a review of killers and sentences.

I have also done a scant few posts about some of the Russian Adooptees: Masha, Dennis Uritsky here in Maryland and somewhat more in-depth coverage of essentially the last major international incident concerning American adopters of a dead Russian adoptee, the sad death of Dmitry Yakolev/ Chase Harrison.

With that as backgrounder, we then come to the events of the last 24 hours.

Start with this lengthy video segment from Russia Today,

Clearly, each and every system in place to prevent such failed one by one, falling like dominoes.

After the 11 hour flight from DC back to Moscow he was brought to the Russian Education and Science Ministry Thursday afternoon by a man who had apparently been paid $200 by the adoptive mother to meet the boy’s United Airlines flight when it arrived. He had been adopted a mere 6 months ago.

While it’s unclear what Artem had been told about the trip, we have details such as these beginning to emerge:

The online website Gazeta.ru said the child had almost completely forgotten how to speak Russian during his time in the United States, and answered questions posed to him in his native language in English. He said his adoptive grandparents were “good” but his mother was “very bad”, claimed the website. During his time in the US, he had been given a new name – Justin Hansen.

Allegedly he was told by his adoptive mother, from Shelbyville, Tennessee, that he was going on an excursion to Russia and would return home to the US in a couple of weeks. “His adoptive mother beat him and pulled him by the hair,” said Pavel Astakhov, the Russian president’s human rights ombudsman. “Reminding him of her makes him cry.”

At the orphanage in the far eastern town of Partizansk, where the child lived before he was adopted, teachers denied that he had psychological problems. “He’s a smart, clever kid,” said Svetlana Glukhovtseva. “He took in everything we taught him very well.”

Anyone with a shred of empathy can sympathize with the betrayal he must have felt upon realizing that far from some kind of “excursion,” his new “forever mommy” had decided to ship him off as if taking the boy to a returns department.

The Russian media is running with the “returned purchase” meme and I’m convinced, it’s a very valid analogy. They, like many of us Bastards, recognize the American adoptive mother is attempting to pass Artem off as nothing more than ‘defective merchandise’, and are furious at the callousness of her these actions.

There have been promises of an investigation here on the American end to see whether or not any laws were broken, I can only hope such would take into account not merely the actions of these individuals, but the entire system that enabled this human rights travesty.

Children are not objects.

They should not be treated as such.

They should not be purchased, nor purchase-able.

Artem was not treated as a family member, he was treated as little more than an allegedly ‘broken item’ shipped back to the manufacturer.

Now that he’s back in Russia, the Russian media are reporting he will likely go back into the child welfare system after first receiving physical and psychological examinations and some counseling. The language barrier alone may make him feel all the more isolated in his home country.

Bastardette blogged about Artyom Saveliev / Artem Saveliev /Artem Justin Hansen’s flight last night,  LEAVIN’ ON A JET PLANE: RUSSIAN ADOPTEE DUMPED ON PLANE, SENT BACK TO RUSSIA

Throughout the day today, she has posted several updates:

First an initial update that includes a variety of images relating to the case: Artem’s official adoption listing profile on the Russian government website prior to the adoption, and “after pictures” both with his “Forever Family” adoptive Mommy, Torry Ann Hansen and upon arrival back in Russia at the Domodedovo Airport. Bastardette also includes the image of the note that was sent with Artem on his journey to the ‘returns department.’

ARTEM SAVELIEV/ARTEM JUSTIN HANSEN: A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS

Later on, she added a second update about the Renton Washington agency that placed him, WAPAC, World Association for Children and Parents. WAPAC is Council on Accreditation (COA) accredited and a Joint Council on International Children’s Services (JCICS) and National Council for Adoption (NCFA) member. Earlier today, the Russian government suspended WAPAC’s Russian operations.

She also points out the possibility that Torry Hansen may have been elligible to adopt the boy at a greatly discounted price at the time.

As WAPAC was in Washington State (and ultimately responsible for the placement) and the Hansens live in Tennessee, there have been some questions as to who did the home study.

See Bastardette’s post:

SAVELIEV/HANSEN AGENCY IDENTIFIED: WORLD ASSOCIATION FOR PARENTS AND CHILDREN

I don’t have video up at the moment, but Bastardette also appeared on Russian Today this afternoon to speak about the case. Other American adoptees are also speaking out about this case.

In this link’s video segment you get a feel for the American Home the boy was placed into.

Meanwhile on the American end, pieces such as this are appearing attempting to put forward a bit more of the adoptive Mother Torry Hansen and Adoptive Grandmother, Nancy Hansen’s perspective on the incident:

Russia threatens to suspend US adoptions after woman sends 7-year-old boy back to Moscow alone

The article also contains preposterous nonsense such as this from adoption industry lobbyists, NCFA, desperately trying to maintain Russia as a sending country:

“Child abandonment of any kind is reprehensible,” said Chuck Johnson, acting CEO of the National Council For Adoption.

NCFA associated individuals have been key to how the baby dump laws, (often call “Baby Moses Laws” or “Safe Haven” laws) legalizing child abandonment came to pass here in the United States. For this latest incarnation of NCFA to decry child abandonment is for them to deny their own organizational history!

But clearly there’s another, more pertinent reason NCFA and JCICS are issuing releases and working hard behind the scenes on this case right now, even above and beyond their desires to keep Russia a “sending country”, WAPAC is one of their own.

Neither NCFA nor JCICS mention that WAPAC is their own member agency (see here and here), as they desperately run around try to sell the it’s an “isolated incident” line, pretending that this latest outrage is not situated firmly within a vast pattern of ongoing history of cases pertaining to what Russian adoptees have suffered at the hands of their American adopters: abuse, starvation, beatings, murders, being adopted by a pedophile, left to die in hot cars in summer, and now sent back alone on an international flight.

“Isolated incident” my ass.

Go see this piece from CNN in which the adoptive granmother claims she was following online instructions from a lawyer:

Nancy Hansen, the Tennessee woman who put Justin Hansen on the plane in Washington, insisted she did not abandon the child, but was following instructions from a lawyer she found online.

and

When the lawyer she found online advised her the adoption could be reversed, Hansen booked the flight and paid the fee for a steward to escort Justin through the airport, she said.

She hired a driver in Moscow she found online to pick the child up from the Moscow airport, she said. She found “safe references” for the driver online, she said.

She then prepared a letter for Justin to present to Russian officials, which included a photo of the driver, whom she identified as “Arthur,” she said.

and we hear from the agency, World Association for Children and Parents for the first time:

The Seattle-based agency which Hansen said her daughter used to coordinate the adoption said it found out about Justin’s return only Friday.

“We were alerted to this situation by our branch office in Moscow, Russia, and are shocked and saddened by this turn of events,” said a spokeswoman for the World Association for Children and Parents.

In the 1 percent of the cases where the dissolution of an adoption has been needed, the agency “has always supported and worked closely with [adoptive] parents to assist the child in moving into a new adoptive family,” she said.

See this comment left over on Bastardette’s blog by an anonymous commenter for more details.

***

So here’s a brief post I’ve been meaning to write for some time now. Start with this November 21st article out of the Star Ledger in New Jersey, How you can put a baby in a loving home.

Sure enough, “Boarder Babies” are being folded into New Jersey’s “safe haven” stats.

(See the National Abandoned Infants Assistance Resource Center’s 2005 Fact Sheet on Boarder Babies, Abandoned Infants, and Discarded Infants {link opens a PDF} for some basic information on the boarder babies phenomenon and some of the ongoing issues with “safe haven”/legalized child abandonment laws.)

Keep that in mind the next time you hear some legalized child abandonment advocate bragging about their alleged number of “baby saves.” How many babies turned in under the safe haven program? ‘Oh we’ve “saved” tons!’

Just don’t look too closely, or you might realize how many of those were exactly the problem we’ve had all along, boarder babies, now just moved out of one column and into another. Which is to say the “baby savers’” stats are for shit at this point.

Lumping in the boarder babies not only vastly inflates the “safe haven” numbers of alleged baby “saves,” (a pure mis-characterization, as it’s pretty damn difficult to “save” said babies from mothers who are abandoning them after birth at the hospitals where the children were born. These were babies who never had any genuine chance to be “at risk” of anything outside hospital walls, in some cases, they were never outside a nurse’s care.) but it also sets up one hell of a conundrum.

You have state and federal programs geared towards preventing boarder baby abandonment, trying to encourage womyn to take their babies home rather than walking out the hospitals without them while SIMULTANEOUSLY creating a separate program going the exact opposite direction, wherein the state actively encourages womyn to abandon their newborns or infants.

On the one hand, you have the state putting programs and funding towards family reunification and getting the kids out of the system whenever possible, on the other you have the safe haven program working at cross purposes in most states encouraging anonymous child abandonment making family reunification an impossibility, dumping kids into the system.

Articles such as this, New program hopes to keep ‘border babies’ in arms of their parents are common. Unfortunately even within existing boarder baby programs you have programs already pulling in opposite directions. You have the mothers themselves, as but one number, 63% (link opens a PDF) of them want to keep their kids, and yes, you have programs geared towards either keeping them together or working towards reunification, but at the same time you have Child Protective Services (often encumbered by guidelines created in relation to American drug law policy) making the final determination as to whether or not the child will ultimately be discharged to go home with their parents.

Boarder baby policy(ies) is already more than enough of a conflicted mess without adding “safe haven” laws into the mix.

Boarder Babies are not only a huge drain on the entire health system, they are the ongoing “background noise” of health care itself. This has led program after program aimed at dealing with such, (and the media) to label the ever mounting numbers of abandoned at hospitals post birth and after the mother’s discharge an all out “boarder baby crisis.”

Let’s be clear here. The alleged raison d’etre for the legalized abandonment/”safe haven” schemes was to “save” babies who were supposedly at risk of immediate harm. A boarder baby born in a hospital, and either abandoned by its parents or forced to be left behind by a child protective services determination is NOT and NEVER WAS in any danger. It was born in a hospital and in most cases has been in hospital care its entire life up to that point. To lump boarder babies into baby-dump/”safe haven” stats is not merely disingenuous, a BLATANT fabrication.

Unless of course, the whole point was always to increase the supply of adoptable history free infants, permanently separated from their parents of origin.

Seeing as to how the legalized abandonment laws were the (sick) spawn of the National Council for Adoption (NCFA), and the primary organization pushing for the dump laws, the National Safe Haven Alliance grew out of the NCFA, I’ll leave it to readers to make up their own minds about said motivations.

More recently of course you have the federal adoption ‘bonuses’ to states that move children from the public system into “permanent homes.” Children who are abandoned are automatically categorized as “special needs” and states placing “special needs” kids get even larger adoption bonuses.

When you hear the term “safe haven” keep in mind that much of what we’re really talking about here is fast tracked, so called “non-bureaucratic placements,” i.e. adoptions whenever possible.

While the preferred mythology of the “safe haven” babies is that of the alleged young and desperate (preferably white) teenage mother with nowhere else to turn, “safe havening” her (preferably equally white, or at least passable) newborn only to be adopted as soon as possible after relinquishment with (yet another preferably white, preferably heterosexual) loving couple out in the ‘burbs with a white picket fence and a dog, add the reality of boarder babies into the mix and clearly there’s more to to all this than first meets the eye.

When boarder babies are lumped under those same words, adopters may find themselves with a kid going through weeks of withdrawal or even lifelong effects after drug additions, lifelong effects that even experts can’t predict, or they may be receiving an HIV+ child. Due to the lack of prenatal care and the facets of their mother’s lives (poverty, inadequate food in the household, mental illness, addiction, etc) the adopters’ newly acquired little bundle of joy may turn out to be quite a bit more than they bargained on.

Under normal conditions, boarder babies are some of the least desirable kids in the adoption food chain, for many of the reasons I listed above. That said though, via re-branding, boarder babies can now go up for adoption as “saved” “safe haven” babies, suddenly now a desirable commodity to some.

This is tremendously beneficial to the state, as without the re-branding, boarder babies tend to languish in hospital care for months, only to eventually be bounced around the foster care system, they’re the kids nobody wants.

Take this older story out of the New York Times, BOARDER BABIES FIND COMFORT IN FOSTER GRANDPARENTS’ ARMS, in which the low income elderly are being recruited to deal with the them:

Besides providing a support system for the babies, the foster grandparents’ program tends to counter stereotypes of older people, said Marcia Vogel, the director. ”It shows how useful they can be,…

“Safe Haven” babies come “as is.” Most states actively make no point of collecting medical information or histories on the kids. The less known about them, the more marketable they are.

So it’s “buyer beware” for the adopters who clamour to get a hold of the little media friendly “saved babies.”

But that lifelong question mark of lack of information while a downside for the kids, is an upside for the state and its marketing. Phone lines buzz with desperate infertile couples trying to get a hold of “Safe Havened” babies after news reports.

So, how many other states are padding out their numbers of “safe haven saved babies” with boarder babies?

Perhaps more importantly, how many states are ’solving’ their boarder baby problem by sliding them over a column?

I can just hear it now:

‘Wow! New Jersey, fewer boarder babies? That’s great! How’d you manage that?’

***

Children of the Corn
A new blog in support of Repealing legalized child abandonment laws and chronicling the Nebraska dump law case study.

Reporting, Theory, and Opinion on Legalized Child Dumping in Nebraska

***

As Marley Greiner (who blogs the Daily Bastardette) and I were both detailing the Nebraska disaster, we came to the conclusion that combining our shared blogging of the history into one common resource would be helpful to others researching the still unfolding mess. She and I both support nothing short of full repeal of all legalized child abandonment laws.

Our posts to date have often overlapped and referenced one another, going forward, we will likely each bite off separate pieces to tackle, or write from different angles about the same set of events.

For example, I am relying on her reporting this evening about the two latest teens who when taken to a Nebraska hospital ditched their dumper and ran-

BORN TO RUN! TWO ESCAPE SAFE HAVEN MOM

Children of the Corn will be the repository for our interwoven coverage from here on.

To be perfectly frank, I was honoured to be invited to join her. She and I are old friends. we have both spent years working, researching, and writing in support of adoptee rights and about the seemingly unending abuses kids and parents have endured in the name of what often passes for child welfare both in this country and internationally.

I’ve linked across to her coverage many times, but she’s long overdue a proper introduction for my readers here.

(This is one of my favourite older pictures of her.)

Marley’s background in American history brings a wealth of experience to her adoptee advocacy work.

As does her time spent abroad. As but one of many examples, her careful research and chronicling of the deaths of so many of the Russian adoptees, NIKTO NE ZABYT — NICHTO NE ZABYTO, Nobody is forgotten. Nothing is forgotten, is an incredible resource.

Marley is a maintainer of memory.

To all this, add her ongoing work and years of experience as Executive Chair and Co-founder of Bastard Nation and it readily becomes clear why she’s the right person to team up with. BN has been one of the strongest most consistent voices against all dump laws, from the very dawning of them back 9 years ago. Year after year BN fought the dump laws, building in the testimonies given state after state, perhaps the most clear articulation of why the dumps laws must be repealed. She is also the creator of the Adoptee Rights News Blog.

It’s her passion and unflinching tenacity that makes this a natural pairing. She through the years has shown again and again her willingness to turn over the rocks, and not turn away at what she finds crawling about beneath. Her realistic view of the current state of child welfare and adoption is a vitally needed counterweight voice in opposition to the so often Vaseline smeared lenses the adoption industry, dump marketeers and others would prefer we all look though.

When legislators or media fall for the marketing, Marley has been there time and again, bringing forth the facts that undercut the lies.

She’s been more than willing to do the legwork and follow through to look at what the kids themselves are really experiencing; homelessness, being passed around in the endless circle jerk of referrals to nowhere, kids who end up living on the streets, abused, even murdered. (Herein of course, I’m speaking more broadly, not merely about Nebraska.)

Perhaps most pertinent to the Nebraska situation though, is that for a number of years now, since 2001, Marley has been the creator and sole editor of the Baby Dump News, “a weekly e-chronicle of newborn abandonment, infanticide, safe haven legislation, and related issues.” E-mailed out week after week, very little of the BDN is online, but the 2007 index can be found here.

Marley has been case by case, article by article tracking abandonments and child dumps for years. In short, she has been nose down in the details of the dump laws for about forever.

She is also a board member of and writer for the (Columbus, Ohio) Free Press. She and I both share interests as activists and researchers writing about issues of womyn’s autonomy and those would impose their interpretation of theonomy.

When it comes to the things kids are enduring, from denial of equality under law to state encouraged abandonment, she understands the critical importance of holding those responsible’s feet to the fire, as well as both looking and working systemically at how interlocking aspects of systemic structures are broken and failing kids and families.

In short, I’m damn proud to team up with her. Honoured actually, that she wants to place my work alongside hers.
I hope regular readers here will understand the vital contribution she has been making and continues to make, both in relation to the Nebraska situation and dump laws more broadly, but also in her many years of tireless work on behalf of all dumped kids sitting alongside her work on for adopted people and their families.

If there’s anyone who should be listened to at this critical juncture in the Nebraska process, it’s Marley.

All of this of course, is a mere thumbnail sketch. Marley is all this and much more. But mostly she’s got a wicked sense of humour, historical perspective, and a particular way with penning a poem.

This is the CotC announcement she has added to Bastardette tonight, feel free to pass it along to others who are researching the Nebraska mess:

Lauren Sabina Kneisly (Baby Love Child) and Bastardette are happy to announce the posting of our new blog: Children of the Corn: Reporting, Theory, and Opinion on Legalized Child Dumping in Nebraska.

Since we were both writing so much on the topic of Nebraska child dumping law, LB 157, we decided it would be a good idea to put our work together in an easy-to-access format. The blog is a repository of our Nebraska writing, in chronological order, since the first “legal” abandonment took place in September. It is intended as a resource for those researching so-called “safe haven” or “Baby Moses” laws, Nebraska LB 157 , adoptee rights activists, adoption reformers, child welfare advocates, bastards, legislators, the media, and those who are just plain disgusted.

We may occasionally add the work of another blogger or scholar. Over the next week or so we add more links and other resources.

We will continue to post our Nebraska blogs on our individual blogs as well.

CHILDREN OF THE CORN

http://cornkids.blogspot.com

please distribute freely!

***

Friday an 11 year old girl was left by her mother at Bergan Mercy Hospital. NE DHHS counts her as the 29th kid in the official count.

Be sure to see A Mother’s Story of Trying to Get Help. Note that the girl was originally going to go into an adoption:

The mother in Nebraska’s most recent Safe Haven case speaks out about why she dropped off her eleven year old daughter. It’s another story of a parent who tried to get help, but instead ran into roadblocks.

…

“She was originally supposed to go up for adoption. We were living in Minnesota, I was a young single mother.” Another family was ready to adopt the newborn and take her in, but the girl’s grandmother stepped in.

Once again we come back to what sits in the middle of these cases, guardians feel the only way they can get these kids help is to use the dump laws. The cost of getting a kid the help they need should never be loss of their family. One should not have to surrender parental or guardian rights to gain access to the services necessary to get a kid what they need.

Marley’s got a post up about her, along with updates on both the Indiana and Michigan dump cases.

Also on Friday the full court press media circus kicked in as everyone gears up for the special session.

The lip-flapping-to-fill-the-space-between-the-commericials “Dr. Phil” television show did an hour long dump supportive promo (be sure to catch his “uncensored” commentary here in which he sings the praises of leglaized child abandonment. ) My comment on both the Laura the moralizing hypocrite (link not suitable for minors or workplace reading) insipid blog post and Phil-the-shill show that Marley pointed her readers at can be found here.

Again, I couldn’t make stuff like this up. We are so far into the realm of whacked out fiction I couldn’t write characters like this if I tried. Supposedly “pro-family” morons singing the praises of child dumping, through the looking glass we go.

If you had told me 20 years ago that I would be sitting here, having to explain to people that abandoning children is never a good thing, I never would have believed you. These are things I used to consider self-evident.

But once this latest crop of dump-abandonment propagandists got involved people began to loose track of which way is up and which way is down.

Hint;

• kids not being abandoned=good,
• abandoning kids=bad.
• State enabled and encouraged legalized child dumping=bad, very bad.

Meanwhile back in the real world the Omaha World-Herald had two good pieces today, The Children: Kids suffer sense of abandonment and The Parents: Myth aside, caretakers stay involved. Readers should go take the moment to go across and read the articles.

Once again, up through the cracks we barely hear the actual voice of a dumped kid:

One 12-year-old safe haven boy has posted this message on his MySpace page:”**choose me** Im so damn lonley.”

Finally, see Safe Haven Revision Set for Next Friday.

The law tweeks are on the horizon. Practically guaranteeing that the next set of ‘aged down’ kids will continue to deal with all the problems dump laws create under dump law 2.0.

Meanwhile the demand for full repeal continues on, apparently unheeded.

I don’t want to be sitting here in 6 months having to say “we told you so” all over again, I want the states to stop manufacturing still more dump-related ordeals.

As for the kids already dumped, the damage is done. They’ll be living with such the rest of their lives, unlike certain legislators (in any given state) who simply can, and do, walk away from the messes they made.

***

An 8 year old boy from Indiana was dumped in Nebraska today. He’s the fourth out of state kid dumped into the Nebraska system.

The AP has a piece here- Indiana boy latest Nebraska safe-haven case.

Marley’s got a few more details up on her blog:

NEBRASKA FIASCO CONTINUES: INDIANA MOM DEPORTS SON TO NEBRASKA; CASE UPDATES Thursday, November 06, 2008.

As she points out, other than the Staton case, this 8 year old is the other youngest kid dumped in Nebraska.

The Nebraska DHHS official count (link opens a PDF) has been updated to reflect him. As I continue to point out through, the official count does not include all the kids who have interacted with the Nebraska legalized child abandonment law. See Marley’s chronological account, CHILDREN OF THE CORN: NEBRASKA’S DUMPED GENERATION for a more accurate count.

***

As I mentioned recently, I’ve been busy the last week or so. While I’ve certainly still been following the latest twists and turns in the Nebraska situation, I haven’t had much time to actually write. Tonight is no exception.

I did however want to point readers across to two critically important pieces Marley has done on her blog, Bastardette:

CHILDREN OF THE CORN: NEBRASKA’S DUMPED GENERATION Saturday, November 01, 2008

and

MEET #25, #26, AND MAYBE #27–AND THAT PESKY 18- YEAR OLD: THE NEBRASKA FIASCO CONTINUES Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Since I last blogged on Oct 29th, even the official Nebraska DHHS count (link opens a PDF) has gone up to 27 kids dumped to date.

But as I’ve been pointing out for some time now, there are a number of situations under which kids have interacted with the law not tabulated in the official count. (Again see my earlier explanations, here and here, of some of those unoffical interactions.)

Marley pointed her readers at an important article, bringing up the plight of the self “havening” boy from Grand Island who has, sure enough, fallen through the cracks. As he was deemed “too old” and as he turned himself over, he is not counted among the official cases (He’s not in the Nebraska DHHS count.)

She saw the gap most recently when she housed the Grand Island teen, who in September, attempted to turn himself in at St. Francis Medical Center under the safe-haven law.

He was over the age of 17 and wasn’t turned in by a parent, so didn’t qualify to enter the Health and Human Services system, Schwan said.

He stayed in her home with Schwan and her family for three weeks, while Schwan tried unsuccessfully to find him placement in various community service programs.

and

Schwan said Grand Island’s safe haven teen was told to leave home by his mother’s boyfriend, had lived for more than a year with his grandmother in an area storage unit and has been in four high schools over the past four years.

“He just wants to finish school,” she said.

Kids like him need a safe place to go — even just temporarily, Schwan said.

The bottom line is, despite attempting to “safe haven” himself, he isn’t even listed among the cases.

Kid after kid is going through the system, some are counted, others like the boy from Grand Island are not.

Yet when legislators go to “fix” their broken law do you think they will even hear about the plight of these kids? They’re nowhere in the stats. They’re off the books. They may as well not even have every existed when it comes to the official stats in relation to the Nebraska legalized child abandonment law.

It’s come down to those of us on the outside to even remind people that kids like this are part of the history of the miserably failed child welfare social experiment in Nebraska.

Despite what the kids are undergoing day in and day out, Nebraska lawmakers and Governor Heineman apparently appear to feel no great urgency to try to deal with the mess of their own creation.

Instead they’ve offered up a ‘compromise’ a mere tweek to the law, offering it up as some kind of “solution”, (or at least a means of getting the attention to shift and die down.) Their inaction and lack of a genuine solution only continues to ensure the kids themselves are the ones who will suffer the consequences of such.

(By way a side notation for new readers, I’ve already explained how the plan to age down Nebraska’s dump law to infants 3 days old or less is no solution to the problem. I’ve taken to referring to such as dump law 2.0. From a genuine child welfare stance their short sighted “solution” is dead on arrival. Kids will continue to endure the harm all dump laws cause, but as the kids will be infants not teens they will be less likely to be able to vocalize the problems they will face until years later.)

***

As always, I continue to call for nothing short of full repeal of all legalized child abandonment laws.

With a little luck, I’ll be back to blogging in more detail very soon.

***

Ironically, just as the excrement really hits the fan, I find myself least able to carve out time for more than this bare bones blogging at the moment.

That said, I’ll write what little I do have time for.

Here are the latest sad additions to the Nebraska dump law casualty count:

• Oct 25th- 12-year old boy from Georgia
• Oct 27th- 15-year old girl
• Oct 28th- 17 year old boy and 15-year old girl.

To my count, this brings the total number of kids who have in some way interacted with the dump law to date, whether counted by Nebraska DHHS or not, to 28. (Again see my earlier explanations, here and here, of how I’ve reached this number.)

By way of providing some detail, Marley Greiner on her blog, Bastardette has been picking up some of the Nebraska blogging over the last few days, particularly relating to the GA abandonment:

Sunday, October 26, 2008

GEORGIA ON MY MIND: ANOTHER OUT-OF-STATE DUMP

Monday, October 27, 2008

GEORGIA ON MY MIND MORNING UPDATE

NEBRASKA SAFE HAVEN: HERDING CATS

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

ON NO! ANOTHER ONE! NEBRASKA FIASCO AD NAUSEAUM

No doubt she will have more as events unfold.

Then today, Nebraska’s Governor Heineman called for a special session (link opens a PDF) of the currently out of session legislature. (Note that some of these legislators would not be around in January when the regular session begins due to being term limited out.) The session is scheduled to begin Friday November 14th.

The revised version of the dump law, what I’ve been referring to as dump bill 2.0 would limit Nebraska’s dump window to infants three days old or younger.

I’ve already written repeatedly about how a 2.0 bill would fail to address the core problems inherent to all dump laws. Take this, from a post I wrote back on Oct 21 (Nebraska attempts to slam to barn door, only creating a new set of problems) when the “agreement” was initially announced:

As I predicted, Nebraska appears to have decided to go to dump law 2.0, the aged down version. Nebraska will still be encouraging child abandonment, just of kids too young to protect their own interests, or speak about the experience of being dumped for some years.

That does not mean these soon to be aged down dumps are less damaging.

Aging down still does nothing about so many of the core problems with the dump laws, parental rights being violated when one parent dumps and the other is out of the loop, the Indian Child Welfare Act violations, the real needs of families, and most importantly, the needs of the dumped kids themselves.

But aging down will ensure that 18 year gap between when a kid is dumped and when they hit age of majority, thus sparing the legislators, but not the kids.

If all the Nebraska legislators do is age down to version 2.0, they’ve sidestepped many issues of substance relating to the dump laws to do mere superficial tinkering, or as I put it, change the shade of lipstick on the pig.

The pig’s still there. It’s a ticking time bomb, that as more dumps happen under the new rules and the dumped kids grow older, a whole new set of problems are slowly going to become apparent, though odds are, just as in other states, they will be dismissed as ‘personal problems’ not problems inherent to the system the dump laws create.

For those of us who genuinely care about the state of child welfare in Nebraska, and want to see the state cease its encouragement of legalized child abandonment, we now appear to have just over 2 weeks to encourage Nebraska legislators to come to understand the inherent flaws in even an ‘aged down’ version of a dump law, and instead encourage them to embrace the full repeal position.

Nothing less than full repeal of Nebraska’s encouragement of child abandonment will help these kids.

It’s past time to detangle any version of a dump bill from what needs to be a second bill supporting access to for example increased access to mental health care and genuine support for families in crisis.

Repeal the dump law once and for all, then set about doing the difficult job of creating a genuine and meaningful safety net for kids and their families.

Entangling these two separate issues, legalized child abandonment and access to programs for families in crisis is a conflationary tactic. It is absolutely possible to get families in need real help without it ‘costing’ them their family ties or custodial rights. Decoupling the two actually increases the odds of people getting the help they need, as few families are willing to permanently relinquish their parental rights to help a child gain access to the system.

Falsely linking the two only enables child abandonment to continue, causing maximum damage, a lifetime’s worth of damage to these kids, all while riding on the good intentions of those seeking help.

As for the 2.0 infants, they will of course be facing a different set of issues, but will be no less abandoned, at the state’s encouragement. Their parents will also be in crisis, and no dump law is going to offer real solutions for them.

The Nebraska fiasco only exposed what lies at the core of any dump law: desperation and lack of options.

It’s past time to dump the dump laws and instead demand legislators roll up their sleeves and do the real work, building real structures towards prevention and crisis intervention.

Outsourcing Nebraska’s child welfare problems to “faith based” private agencies or “aging down” in a vain attempt to sidestep the issues the older child abandonments raise are not solutions, they’re not even band-aids.

Rather than trying to manufacture “new and better” ways of the state encouraging legalized child abandonment, the state should instead, be tackling the underlying problems that lead guardians to dump the kids in the first place.

As I keep saying, kids deserve better than abandonment.

Mere monkeying with age limits is no “solution.”

As an immediate measure, the legislature needs to repeal the dump law to prevent even further harm be done to still more kids and their families.

Then as a second step, they need to stop looking to whatever next ‘quick fix’ advocates and salespeople of various stripes would like to sell them on, and instead do the real work.

The kids are waiting, will Nebraska legislators step up?

***

So I’m behind but trying to catch up.

Tuesday another teen showed up at a hospital turning herself in under Nebraska’s “safe haven” law. Making this the second “self haven” case. See Teen Cites Safe Haven.

Tuesday night the teenage mom walked into the hospital after she says her mom hit her and kicked her out. The North High sophmore also claims her mom steals her welfare checks, meant for the baby. The teen’s mother insists she’s never abused her daughter or taken her money. “I shouldn’t have to explain my financial situation to anyone, even my child, as long as she got a roof over her head. She’s not neglected, she eats whenever she wants to, she take a bath whenever she wants to. Her job is to go to school and come home and take care of her child, now that she has a child,” says Portia Crawford.

Crawford claims this whole thing started over a fight with her daughter who wanted to go out for the night and leave her baby.

This is the second teen who has turned themselves in, the first was back on September 22rd, an 18 year old boy who walked into Grand Island hospital. He was turned away as too old for foster care and given a referral to services, whatever that entailed.

The news story continues:

A petition was filed to charge Crawford with neglect, her daughter is not protected under safe haven.

Welcome to the grand irony of Nebraska’s “safe haven” law, anyone with physical custody of a kid when dumping is protected under the law, but kids themselves trying to access help are not.

Neither of the two teens are being counted in Nebraska DHHS’s official dump statistics (link opens a PDF.) This is important, as clearly these self “havens” are falling through the cracks. As they simply fall out of the history, no one can get a handle on what’s been happening. They’re absolutely happening, but hidden.

The local news, for example knew nothing of the earlier instance. (Should we sooner or later expect yet a third “bizarre new twist” story when another kid does the same?)

No age is reported on the girl beyond “sophomore” and “teen,” but we can safely assume she would likely fall within the age range covered by the law.

The bottom line is these two have become invisible self “havens”. Ghosts in the machine.

Nebraska thinks these kids don’t count.

Perhaps most importantly, despite asking for help under the law, there is no “haven” on the other end for them.

Then Wednesday, another kid was abandoned at Immanuel Hospital in Omaha, a 17-year old boy.

See, Another Safe Haven Drop in Omaha

and

KETV’s New ‘Safe Haven’ Teen Has Criminal Record

Investigators said it appears to be a case involving a mother who decided she could no longer handle her teenage son.

and

According to juvenile court records, the mother told a social worker that her son “needed to be a state ward now.” She said she was exercising her right under the Safe Haven law.

Perhaps one of the more interesting details in the piece is the boy’s lack of educational history:

Omaha Public Schools said her son has never been enrolled in a district school, even though he lives in the district.

Whether this means the boy was home schooled or in a private school or simply never educated at all remains to be seen.

Once again, we have those actually dealing with the practical application of the dump laws unhappy with the lack of preventative structures long before a kid reaches a dump site:

“There needs to be a better way to address these issues,” said assistant Douglas County attorney Nicole Goaley. “I think there needs to be a preventive way to assist families in getting their children the resources they need without making them wards of the state.”

Naturally, per the title of the piece, the focus is also on the boy’s previous “run-ins with the law:”

Court records show the teenager in this latest case has had several run-ins with the law. Earlier this year, he pleaded guilty to marijuana possession and being a minor in possession of alcohol. Last year, he was charged with misdemeanor theft and failure to appear in court.

The boy is in temporary, emergency custody with the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Service. His case will be heard in Douglas County Juvenile Court next week.

So let’s talk numbers again.

While the Nebraska DHHS count stands at 19 kids, as I’ve said before, this is a Bastard Blog so here, I focus on the experiences of the kids themselves in relation to the dump law. My count is well above 19.

Nebraska may not count for example, the kid left at the Police station as it’s not an authorized dump site under the law, but that kid himself is no less abandoned. To the best of my knowledge he’s still in foster care. He is every bit as dumped as the rest of the kids on the official tally, but not counted.

So let’s go through my non-state approved count of dumped kids:

• 9/1- 14-year old boy dumped at an Omaha police station (not an approved dump site)- NOT COUNTED
  
• 9/13- 11-year old boy
• 9/13- 15-year old boy
• 9/20- either a 13 or 14-year old girl (conflicting accounts)
• 9/22- Self haven- 18-year old boy- NOT COUNTED
• 9/24- 9 siblings: 1-year old girl, 6-year old boy, 7-year old boy, 9-year old girl, 11-year old boy, 13-year old girl, 14-year old girl, 15-year old boy, 17-year old boy
• 9/24- 11-year old boy
• 9/24- 15-year old boy
• 10/5- 15-year old boy
• 10-5- 12-year old boy
• 10/5- 15-year old girl brought to the hospital by her mother to be dumped, police talk her into committing her to the psych ward instead (see my blog piece) – NOT COUNTED
• 10/6- 14-year old girl (Iowa) NE DHHS has her listed as 10/7
• 10/13- 13-year old boy (Michigan)
• 10/21- Self haven- “sophomore/teen” girl – NOT COUNTED
• 10/2- 17-year old boy

(Again, see my Nebraska tag for my previous writings about many of these.)

Which is to say actually 23 kids have either been dumped , are attempted dumps, or self “haven”ed, (only to find no haven there for them.)

On this blog at least I do my damnedest to ensure “nobody gets left behind or forgotten.”

As I said back on October 6th,

If there’s any one thing my blog tries to do consistently, it’s remember those so often forgotten or hidden in (or out of) the ‘official’ tabulations.

…

In Nebraska with its child-dump law the casualties to date have been kids. In states with baby-dump laws, the casualties are babies. Whether newborn or child, abandonment deprives these people of building blocks necessary to them, particularly later in life. The state should never set out to set up systems that intentionally deprives a subset of citizens of basic things other citizens not only have, but consider the bedrock their lives are based on.

No matter what pretty language child-dump advocates attempt to wrap their toxic legislation in, the bottom line is child abandonment is never good for kids.

As I’ve said so many times before, there’s only one thing to do a legalized abandonment law, repeal it.