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Nebraska’s legalized child abandonment law went into effect July 18th, 2008. 73 days ago.

The first two kids dumped in Nebraska under the new law, (over the weekend of Sept 13-14) a tween and a teen, were abandoned just over two weeks ago.

Over the past 16 days, 16 kids have been abandoned. (Yes including the sad case of the father who abandoned 9 at once.)

Nebraska legislators should be ashamed.

Speaking as an adoptee coming from a sealed records state, I have no way of knowing whether I was abandoned or spent time in foster care of not, but what I do know is that kids, particularly minors are going to internalize this and live with the Nebraska’s legislators’ social experimentation for the rest of their lives.

At least one story over the past few weeks pointed out that a counselor working with a dumped kid said the hardest part was for the kid to understand that this wasn’t their fault.

Kids are not inanimate objects. Kids are not things to try a policy out on and if it doesn’t work, leave those directly affected to deal with their (state created) ‘personal problems’. Only to head back to some mythic drawing board to ‘tweek’ these laws and try again, as if do-overs don’t matter. Dump bill 2.0 is not going to fix the problems inherent to any dump bill. It will only to subject the next batch of kids to the next bad batch of legislation. The kids can’t walk away from the consequences. Subjecting them to this unnecessary level of trauma is unconscionable.

Kids are not legislative lab rats.

Kids deserve better than abandonment.

If Nebraska abandonments are primarily going to be used as a state mediated way to plug families into support systems, (which should not be faith-based non-profits), then cut out the abandonment step. Make access to genuine support available long before things escalate to the point of child abandonment.

Do not put kids through this emotional ordeal, (nor ever even possibly,) require parents surrender the parental rights to gain access to help.

No state should be in the business of actively encouraging child abandonment, ever.

And yet today that’s precisely where we stand. All 50 states shamefully abandoning all basis of best practices in child welfare, adoption, and genuine concern for the kids as actual individuals and instead telling parents the answers to their problems lies in abandoning their children.

Yes, in time I will get to other posts, filled with links and details and quotes and all that important stuff, but for this one singular moment, this is a post without citation. This is a post purely about expressing rage.

What Nebraska legislators have done in their mad rush to pass SOMETHING is fuck over 16 kids.

It’s past time to stop. What they have done is fundamentally wrong. How many more kids are going to have to endure these political schemes?

These were parents who needed access to services, but not at the cost of even potentially losing their children. Not at the cost of putting any child through this. The ‘cost’ of linking up with what support may or may not be available must not be a kid wondering why ‘mommy doesn’t love them anymore?’ (Enough so as as to abandon them at a designated dump site.) The assumptions in that are all wrong, but the scars are real.

‘Mommy’ or ‘Daddy’ in reality, if these past two weeks are any indication, often loves the kid fiercely, but in the end, feels they have no other alternative than to utilize the dump law.

Child abandonments are evidence that the ’system’ is failing these families.

When a child is dumped it is no ’save’, it is evidence that the system didn’t work, so much so that someone felt this was all they had left.

Dumps ’save’ nothing for these children. They break trust. The trust between parents and children and between citizens and the state.

Nebraska can do better. All 50 states can do better.

Child abandonment is evidence of a severely broken system. Passing the hard effects of that down to children, those least able to cope with such is nothing less than a cowardly shirking of duty. It is the ugly admission that some people feel the problems are simply ‘too big’, and rather than tackle them, they leave kids to deal with the consequences, personally, as best they can.

Dump laws are intrinsically bad for kids. They are intrinsically harm based.

It’s time to stop mumbling about the possibility of coming up with ‘new and improved’ ways for the state to encourage child abandonment and instead realize that there is no such thing as a ‘good’ child abandonment law.

Child abandonment is never a ’success’, it is nothing to be cheered, let alone promoted.

Every Child dump is evidence of things gone horribly wrong, of broken systems, of desperation, of regret, and of the state failing its families and children.

Now that we’ve seen the raw face of legalized child abandonment, and what it does to kids, be they 18 or infants, it’s time to strip these abominations out of our states.

Repeal them now.

Nothing less than full repeal.

***

Nebraska has finally realized its in over its head.

They opened the floodgates by passing the most egregious legalized child abandonment law in the country, a law that allowed children up to age 19 to be dumped. The kids can be dumped for any reason, by anyone who has bodily custody of them.

Some of us Bastards wrote at the time what an incredibly bad idea this was, and that it was simply a matter of time before Nebraska found older kids being dumped.

Well, so the past 24 hours have seen ELEVEN kids dumped in Nebraska.

As I wrote in my previous post, Nebraska, like any other state, simply has no facilities nor mechanisms, nor long term solutions to fully deal with what these kids would require. They passed the legislation without building any of the necessary structures to even begin to deal with them.

Now the kids are pouring in and people are left stammering ‘but… but, THAT’S not what we INTENDED!’

All intentions aside, Nebraska now has 11 kids who would not have been abandoned were it not for this ill-conceived legislation.

My policy recommendation, dump the legislators and the legislation, not the kids.

Instead of blogging in detail about all of the events of the past 24 hours, I’m simply going to point readers at these two pieces, UPDATE: 2 More Kids Abandoned; 11 Total In Past 24 Hours (and the video that accompanies it) and this AP piece 9 siblings among 11 kids abandoned under Neb. law, as but two of many possible examples.

Be sure to note this quote from the AP article:

Todd Landry, director of the state division of Children and Family Services, said that in nearly every case, the parents who left their children felt overwhelmed and had decided they didn’t want to be parents anymore. None of the kids dropped off so far have been in danger, he said.

The video in the first piece reiterates, the nine kids, ranging from age 1-17 were not in any immediate danger.

These kids weren’t “saved”, they were dumped.

Abandoned by both their father and the state of Nebraska.

Also be sure to check out this article, Mom Accused After Dropping Off Teen At Police Station. Among the more Orwellian aspects of the dump mentality, we find this lovely little redefinition from the mother in question:

“I hope he knows I love him and I didn’t abandon him. …I hope he knows he can come back home and I want him,”

Clearly even the dumpers have no idea what the legal ramifications of an abandonment under Nebraska’s law (had this actually been one, but she picked a non-authorized site) would mean.

Nebraska has intentionally created a child welfare disaster.

Now legislators want to go back and modify the ’safe haven law’ /baby Moses law/ “baby”dump law, a little like closing the barn door after the horses have left.

There is no ‘fixing’ these laws. Even should it be modified to apply only to “newborns” (define and prove that one…) or kids in ‘imminent danger’ (again proving that one will be no end of tricky) it will STILL deny infants their identity, circumvent all best practices in child welfare and adoption, and create a class of kids relinquished in a ‘paperfree’ manner.

Just because newborns are too young to voice their demand for their own rights doesn’t mean they should be denied them.

There is only one child-centered course of action for Nebraska to take, full repeal of their child dump law.

Passing this initial travesty was shameful, an abandonment of the state’s duties to its children, and has ALREADY resulted in kids hastily dumped into the already overburdened Nebraska foster care system.

Someone get these kids a lawyer, they’ve got one hell of a case.