***

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.

***

No blogger could begin to keep up with the mess Nebraska legislators have made. Instead, this post will focus on some of the raw sources dealing with the recent dumps. I’ll slide in a little commentary, but mainly I urge readers to go look at the articles and the videos in my links, they spell out a long sad story of failure. But then when it comes to the dump laws there’s rarely any good news, for the kids anyway.

Here is an Omaha World-Herald round up of many of the recent stories they’ve done relating to the dumps and the aftermath. Lots of links, well worth the read.

As but one example, see their Oct 9th story, Grandmother: Help, not haven, sought for boy which details how one of the kids abandoned was supposedly never intended to be such:

An Omaha grandmother says she wanted to hospitalize her suicidal 12-year-old grandson — not use the safe haven law — when she asked the boy’s aunt Sunday to take him to Immanuel Medical Center.

But instead of receiving help, the boy was placed in a foster home. He is scheduled to move to a group home this weekend.

And the grandmother has been ordered to show up in court next Wednesday for reasons she says she doesn’t understand.

That her grandson is considered a safe haven case is a “misunderstanding,” the woman said.

Regardless of the intent behind each and every single dump, one thing remains perfectly clear, Nebraska’s law is for the first time putting America’s catastrophically broken child welfare system on display while simultaneously putting a spotlight on many of the problems inherent to the legalized child abandonment laws. Additionally, due to the age problems unique to Nebraska’s law, this is all playing out upon kids old enough to remember every sorry detail of it.

But EVEN IF THEY COULDN’T, THE DAMAGE ABANDONMENT DOES TO KIDS, THE KNOWLEDGE THAT THEY WERE ABANDONED, AND THAT THE STATE ACTIVELY ENCOURAGED THEIR ABANDONMENT is still a lifelong betrayal. Child abandonment produces scars time doesn’t heal.

The dump laws make a mockery of any notion of child welfare best practices. Nebraska is merely the most visible and extreme example thereof. By creating the non-anonymous and aged-up version of the laws Nebraska put the full ugliness of the dump laws on international display.

Now that we begin to see the full horror of these legal atrocities there’s only one thing left to do, REPEAL them.

One by one, state after state, pull these abominations back out of the code.

Which brings us to the Michigan boy dumped by his mother in Nebraska, make that adoptive mother, because you see, he was an adoptee.

The Michigan to Nebraska dump was not only a ‘teach you a lesson’ dump, it was also a ‘returns department’ dump. An adopted kid, no longer wanted by his adopters.

Teri, left, and Terrence Martin of Southfield, Mich., the adoptive parents of a 13-year-old boy abandoned in Nebraska under that state’s safe haven law.

(AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

I’m not going to get into every twist and turn of the Mess from Michigan, but I’ll provide a few links worth looking through.

October 13th-

Video from CBS 3 in Omaha (see * below)- Michigan Mom Drops off Son Under Safe Haven. While local news stations are calling it “safe haven crisis” Nebraska politicians still aren’t getting the message.

The video piece includes parts of an interview with State Sen. Brad Ashford:

We passed the law to protect Nebraska children. We didn’t pass the law to protect children from other states.

and

I don’t think it’s a crisis. I, again, it’s not a bad thing that children are being protected.

While Sen. Ashford may personally characterize being abandoned in the Nebraska’s ‘returns department’ as “being protected” there are at this point a number of kids who have actually been through the process who may have a bone to pick with him. Kids like this pregnant 14 year-old girl abandoned through the Nebraska system who had this to say about being dumped:

“I don’t want anything to happen to kids like it happened to me, …”

(She has since been returned to her home.)

October 14th-

Let’s start back here with New Details On Safe Haven Child From Michigan. Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine,

… also says the state of Nebraska is not going to take in children from all over the country. He plans to work with child protective services in Michigan to send this kid back, while at the same time making sure the child is in good hands.

(Never mind the fact that the Nebraska law says nothing about ‘no out of state dumps allowed!’ The way the law is written it’s a free for all, anyone with physical custody can dump a kid, be that domestic or even international!)

The AP did a piece, the morning of the 14th, (this by way of WXYZ in Detroit, Michigan) Local Mom Abandons Teen in Nebraska. (Also see related video on upper right hand corner.) Once again, we see a kid not in any immediate danger-

There was no sign the boy was in immediate danger before he was abandoned early Monday, but an investigation into the boy’s situation was still continuing, Landry said.

A second piece, also from WXYZ, Michigan Mom Who Abandoned Son Identified.

KETV- Court Docs Reveal Story Behind Latest Safe Haven Case This piece goes into just a bit more detail about the ‘teach ‘em a lesson’ aspect of this dump and makes clear, the adoptive mother never intended to actually lose custody of him:

Martin told workers she would come back to get her son and now her son would know she wasn’t kidding.

As to the Judge’s comments in this piece, I don’t think loss family bonds should ever be the ‘cost’ of gaining access to support systems or mental health care. Everything he discusses in this piece can be done WITHOUT the state legalizing child abandonment.

October 15th-

Omaha World Herald-

Michigan boy left at Omaha hospital to stay in Nebraska – for now

and Michigan mother may have used safe haven law as lesson which includes:

“She told hospital staff that since local police were included she would just come back to get (her son), since now he would realize she wasn’t kidding anymore,” the affidavit says.

Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services officials confirmed that the mother had second thoughts about leaving her son. But once a child is left under the law and the state has taken custody, parents or guardians lose their right to make decisions about what happens to the child.

WXYZ, Michigan Mom who Abandoned Son Identified also see video.

October 16th-

KCBY (Oregon), Parents of Mich. boy left in Neb. lose custody.

Three Faux/Fox Detroit links, the first two are AP stories;

Court: Mom Who Abandoned Boy Can’t See Other Kids,

Official: Mich. Mom Neglected Boy She Left in Neb.,

and Children Taken from Mother Who Abandoned Son.

According to the video segment, on the third piece, the adopters were receiving (federal) adoption subsidies for the two kids to the tune of $900 a month. The adopters had apparently “tried for years” to get rid of their two adopted kids.

Note that once again, the adoption subsidies mess that I’ve already blogged about in relation to the dump laws is right in the middle of all this.

Also see, Michigan Prosecutors Don’t Want Mom to Use Nebraska Safe Haven Again

The grandmother said good-bye to the boy before his mother drove to Omaha. She left him Monday morning at the hospital with a packed suitcase and a ten dollar bill. Grandmother says, “She was taking him to a boys’ home that’s what she said a place to take boys with problems.” the grandmother says the boy’s been trouble and they tried to get help for years.

But the Michigan prosecutor found a report from 1999 accusing the mother of burning the boy with a curling iron. For some unknown reason, the state dropped the investigation.

This last bit is particularly important, it implies Michigan dropped the ball long before the dump in Nebraska. Which is to say, this may very well have been an abandonment that never would have happened had there been intervention back at the point where the adopted kid was accused of being burned by his adoptive mother.

All of which points back at the larger problems involved in follow up post placement for adoptees and how over and over again, these kids are simply left to suffer while the adopters collect the federal checks.

Oct 17th

AP by way of CNN- Parents who left teen under safe haven law lose custody

The report said Terri Martin told Nebraska officials that she took the boy there to “scare him,” yet she denied incidents of aggression.

It also said state records showed evidence that neither parent wanted the 13-year-old, who was adopted along with his 10-year-old brother.

AP by way of Faux/Fox Detroit, Court Grants State Temporary Custody of 4 Children

The report also cited a history of referrals to child-welfare officials because of reports of injuries to the teen. Carley is seeking to eliminate the Martins’ parental rights over the 13-year-old. The next court hearing is Nov. 7.

“We think there are some possibilities they could learn to parent the other three safely,” Carley said.

Nebraska has agreed to drop jurisdiction over the teen and let Michigan help him.

Yeah, that would be the Michigan child-welfare system that has apparently already failed him spectacularly. But right back in he goes, ’cause Nebraska doesn’t want him either. This is a kid who has been abandoned not merely by his adopters, but by every state tasked with helping him.

If there was an ongoing history of injuries to the kid, I ask again, what was the deal on his placement? If the adopters were receiving subsidies that would usually mean they took in an older child or sibling group or ’special needs’ kid out of the foster care system. If he was interacting with the system repeatedly due to injuries and burns, who was the person or agency responsible for keeping him with this set of adopters?

Just dumping the kid back into the broken Michigan system ‘disapears’ him right back in.

If Nebraska was at all serious about ’saving’ kids, they might not be so quick to hand over jurisdiction.

But that’s not what Nebraska’s dump law is about. Clearly.

Getting him and his siblings away from the adopters is one thing, getting him away from the system that sent him right back to those adopters after injuries and burns is apparently quite another.

Be sure to see the video piece related to this link, as there are many new details in it, including allegations of the boy having endured sexual abuse.

More video, (again see below *) New Details in Michigan Safe Haven Case, The piece details the adopters charged in Michigan with abuse and neglect.

They claim the boy was abandoned in Nebraska after being advised to do so by a therapist and that his adopters…

…tried to find him a new home again and again.

So once again we have a ‘therapist’ whatever that might mean and whatever qualifications that might entail, telling the guardians to use the dump law.

State Sen. Stuthman (the longtime supporter and sponsor of the Nebraska dump law) wants her prosecuted in Michigan to send a message to the rest of the country.

The ‘message’ of course being that no matter how broadly the Nebraska law was written, everyone involved is now shitting bricks at the prospect of hoards of dumpers crossing state lines to bring their potential dumplings to Nebraska. Gee, usually that’s the kind of thing one might want to think about BEFORE such gets signed into law.

So now we’ve got legalized child abandonment/ ’safe haven’ advocates like State Senator Stuthman trying to close the barn door long after the fact.

It’s important to keep in mind that Sen. Stuthman and other such advocates are precisely who and what got Nebraska into this mess in the first place, all based upon their blind insistence that Nebraska ‘needed’ such a law.

Hint, no kid ever NEEDS to be abandoned.

Also note,

… the court papers outline how the family tried to give back the troubled boy since he was four even going to the birthmother.

This is interesting as it means the adopters had some form of access to the original mother.

(Nebraska) DHHS News Release Safe Haven Youth Returns to Michigan

Also importantly, NPR has a five minute All Things Considered piece, Neb. Safe Haven Law Draws More Than Infants, along with links to past stories about the Nebraska disaster.

It goes into detail about some of the kids themselves reactions to being dumped, describing the extreme duress this law is putting some of the kids through.

October 18th-

Omaha World-Herald, Teen to go home, but state will have custody

Oakland County, Mich., prosecutors are seeking temporary custody of four of the 13-year-old’s siblings still living at home. Deb Carley, the county prosecutor, said an investigation found that the parents had neglected all their children.

Well, mission accomplished, eh?

Right back into the system that didn’t think his adopters were bad enough to warrant losing him prior to the dump.

But Nebraska understands the precedent that would be set by accepting even one out of state dump, so ‘what best for the kid’ be damned. Quick! Get ‘em on a plane!

I can’t wait to see what his next digs are going to be like, foster care? Group home? Think the siblings will get to stay together?

Yeah, well, somehow I doubt wherever Michigan decides to park him until he ages out will be making CNN anytime soon.

This boy is dumped alright.

Nebraska’s washed its hands of him and the odds of him finding ‘a loving adoptive home’ back in Michigan aren’t looking so hot.

* FINALLY-

I’m having some difficulty linking the individual videos, but you can use the search feature on the homepage of CBS 3 news in Omaha to pull up the video links, just search by the video segment names:

Michigan Mom Drops off Son Under Safe Haven 10/13/08 6:44pm

Michigan Boy Latest Safe Haven Drop-Off 10/13/08 11:48pm

Safe Haven Case in Michigan Reveals Child in Trouble 10/14/08 11:44pm

New Details in Michigan Safe Haven Case 10/17/08 6:55pm

***

I suppose the next question should be how many more kids, unwanted, adopted, or otherwise are going to be taken on 12 hour or more car rides to be dumped by those who have physical custody of them?

If Nebraska legislators think this is “not a crisis” perhaps that has more to do with it not being a crisis for them.

For the kids, they can’t wait until January for the Nebraska legislature to step up and begin to tackle (or perhaps if they have the courage, ‘undo’ to the extent they can going forward) the crisis they created.

They can’t wait while legislators hem and haw and contemplate the possibilities.

They need an end to legalized abandonments.

And they need it now.

To date 21 kids have undergone some form of abandonment in Nebraska, even if NE DHHS only formally counts 18 of them (link opens a PDF), (see my earlier blogging on the numbers game being played here.) That’s 21 kids who would not have had to endure the turmoil of being abandoned but for the short sighted and ill-advised actions of the Nebraska legislature.

At what point do they finally recognize their little social experiment is causing harm to the kids?

What will it take before legislators finally show some spine and put an end to the mess they’ve created?

Legalized child abandonment laws need to be REPEALED. Period. No state should ever be in the business of actively encouraging child abandonment.

The kids can’t wait another day, …another hour, …another minute.

Only Nebraska legislators hold the power to put a stop to this, it’s long past time they realized their mistake and worked to prevent further damage.

As for the 21 kids already enduring the effects of this legislation, they’ll be living with it the rest of their lives.

For each and every one of them, trust me on this, I think they’d be the first to tell you, it was absolutely a point of crisis.

A crisis they will be enduring the consequences of from now on.

***

Nebraska, meet your neighboring state, Iowa.

Tuesday, Nebraska’s legalized child abandonment law took its latest inevitable twist, a 14 year-old Council Bluffs Iowa girl was brought across the Missouri River and abandoned at an Omaha’s Creighton University Medical Center.

Nebraska CFS proceeded to shit the proverbial brick, calling up the Iowa child abuse hotline and making a formal report in hopes of having the girl’s guardian prosecuted in Iowa:

Todd Landry, director of the state’s Children and Family Services, said the safe-haven law’s legal protections may not apply in this case because the girl is from Iowa, and whoever abandoned the 14-year-old might be prosecuted in that state.

“We have made a formal report of the abandonment to the Iowa child abuse hot line,” Landry said in a statement issued Tuesday night. “We are working with the Iowa Department of Human Services to resolve this situation as quickly as possible.”

Despite the broadly worded nature of the Nebraska law, those dealing with the day to day practicalities of it’s implementation see the writing on the wall, if they don’t do SOMETHING asap, to stem the tide, Nebraska will indeed, enter the national consciousness as a dumping ground of kids of any age. (I can just see the vacation postcards now, “Nebraska, where your kids can become memories!”)

This was nothing if not predictable. And yes, predicted, long before the law went into effect.

What the Nebraska legislature failed to grasp was that upon unleashing this child welfare fiasco, they made their state a NATION-WIDE dumping ground for kids. There’s nothing in the Nebraska law that prevents anyone ( see the “physical custody”clarification at the bottom of this Bastardette blog post) from anywhere showing up, kid in tow, and leaving them at any approved Nebraska dump site.

Now Nebraska wants those who dump in their state prosecuted in their home states. Yeah, good luck with that. After all, such would mean for example, those gambling in Vegas, upon returning home to a state where gambling is not legal being prosecuted for their activities in Nevada!

For those of you counting, she’s abandoned kid number 20, if you count the police station (unauthorized child dump site) dump, the 18 year-old who ‘abandoned’ himself under the Nebraska law, and the redirected dump that turned into a psych ward commitment at the urging of a Lincoln police officer, none of which are included in the Nebraska DHHS legalized abandonment stats as they are attempted, but not tabulated child dumps.

As the numbers grow, the numbers spin increases, resulting in articles headlined misleadingly, 9th Safe Haven Case Reported Tuesday.

Just as I posited in my previous post, clearly there are those who wanted to dump or were even attempting to dump, who were instead redirected. The attempted dumps are left unreported, other than a pair of mentions in passing:

Emergency room nurses at Saint Elizabeth Medical Center said they believe they have averted three potential Safe Haven cases since the law went into affect in July.

This belongs alongside the quote used in my previous post:

Casady says this is the second time LPD has helped a family considering using the safe haven law.

This is in the context of an officer talking a dumping guardian out of dumping and into committing the teen to the hospital’s psych ward instead.

These two quotes allude to potentially four more cases that would have resulted in child abandonments under the law had it not been for the intervention of hospital staff or police.

This is only what is ‘visible’, the few bits and pieces reported in local media. How many other ‘near-dumps’ have occurred is simply an unknown.

Nebraska hospitals are reporting phone calls from relatives wanting to bring in kids:

“People are calling up, ‘Can I bring my child or my nephew to the emergency room? we need help,’” emergency director Libby Raetz said.

As the numbers of legally abandoned children in Nebraska continues to rise, the Nebraska Legislature’s Judiciary and Health and Human Services committees have announced a joint public hearing on the legalized child abandonment law:

The Legislature’s Judiciary and Health and Human Services committees plan to hold a joint public hearing on the safe-haven law on Nov. 13.

Gov. Dave Heineman has not ruled out calling a special session of the Legislature to fix the law, but he has been reluctant to do so.

“The governor remains hopeful that a special session won’t be needed, but this issue must be addressed immediately at the beginning of the next session,” Heineman’s spokeswoman Jen Rae Hein said Wednesday.

From Lawmakers Schedule Safe Haven Hearing:

With new evidence almost daily that Nebraska’s Safe Haven law is having unintended consequences, Senator Brad Ashford, chairman of the Nebraska Legislature’s Judiciary Committee and Sen. Joel Johnson, chairman of the Health and Human Services Committee, Tuesday announced a hearing.

The joint hearing will be held to allow the public to comment on two key issues. The first issue: the use of the Safe Haven Law by parents and guardians since the bill went into effect and the need for possible amendments.

The second issue: what resources are available to children living in crisis, the process a parent or guardian must follow to access that help and whether any of this needs changing.

The hearing will be held November 13th at 1:30 p.m. in room 1113 of the State Capitol.

(the piece then goes on to list the DHHS officially abandoned under the law count.)

Not to be outdone, Nebraska’s Governor, Dave Heineman, released a statement yesterday. See Nebraska Governor’s statement on safe haven law (link opens a PDF) for the full text.

Among other details we have confirmation from the governor that none of the kids dumped was in “immediate danger”:

Children from eight families have been left at hospitals under the safe haven law. None of the children involved were infants and none was in immediate danger. While they cannot be charged for abandoning a child, parents and guardians using Nebraska’s safe haven law can be charged for other offenses. Courts are also likely to require parents and guardians to participate in parenting classes, family therapy, conflict resolution or other services in an effort to reunite youth with their families. Child support payments may be ordered while children are in state custody.

We also get the reiteration that the state may try to collect child support out of the abandoned kid’s guardian while the kid is in custody. These comments echo the Nebraska DHHS press release put out Sept. 26th, Safe Haven Law Does Not Absolve Parents of Responsibility.

The Governor’s statement continues:

Abandonment of an older child is potentially very devastating. Human services professionals have highlighted the difference in giving up a baby who will grow up knowing their birth family wanted a better life for them versus the impact of a parent giving up on an older child.

There are so many incorrect assumptions in this I scarcely know where to begin.

Abandonment of ANY child is devastation.

Just because an infant is not old enough to have a first hand account of the event, that hardly means they will not be affected deeply by it throughout their lifetime.

The primary difference between the abandoned infant’s perspective and the abandoned child’s perspective is in whether or not they remember and have an existing INTERPERSONAL relationship with those previous family members. It is important to remember than A relationship exists between them whether they have ever spent time together or remember one another or not. The permanent loss of that family, even if not personally remembered through an abandoned child’s first hand accounts does not mean that loss is something moved past with ease.

Speaking as an adopted adult who lives behind the wall of sealed records, although I may not have personal memories of my family of origin, that hardly means they somehow matter less to me.

Further, the personal information cut through that break in ties, the child’s identity ‘rights’, heritage, and cultural context, genetic, etc is a lifelong loss. In practical terms, it means living a lifetime without access to the kinds of information other citizens take for granted.

The role of the state, rather than encouraging the loss of such, should instead be to protect those citizens most vulnerable and most unable to speak out on behalf of their own interests. Make no mistake about it, speaking personally, as the living result of another form of child welfare social experimentation, when the state intentionally deprives infants of those bedrock assumptions that other citizens simply have, the state is causing lifelong harm. It deprives people of information, while they are infants, and the effects will echo down through the lifetimes of the class of people directly affected, their families, and their own children.

“Wanted a better life for them” is also another coded piece of language adopted people are all too familiar with.

The more we began to uncloak the secrecy surrounding the circumstances of our own relinquishments is the more we found the real reasons very few womyn relinquish their children to adoption, most womyn would keep their children if only they could. We were often surrendered due to to lack of resources and poverty, as well as the climate of shame inflicted on many pregnant womyn, the young, the poor, those whose families reject them.

To our horror, some of us have found parents who were not consenting parties. Womyn forced to sign papers, fathers simply left out of the equation altogether, other extended family members desperate to ‘keep up apperances’ and ‘make the problem/baby just go away’ pushing relinquishment as the ‘only answer’. To say nothing of industry pressure.

As Nebraska’s current dump law allows anyone with ‘physical custody’ to dump, and to date we’ve seen extended family dumping, questions of consent remain by and large unaddressed for some parties who may well have their legal rights trampled in the process.

Pushing the age limit in Nebraska down from any “child” under age 19, down to ‘newborns’ still does nothing to change the situations of those utilizing the legalized child abandonment laws, it takes the kid out of the equation, but structural issues such as poverty, lack of adequate child care, domestic violence, health care costs, etc remain intact.

Infant abandonment laws make the perfect cover for incest, hidden pregnancy, secret birth, then just dump the ‘evidence’.

Legalized child abandonment laws are harmful to womyn, to families, to communities, and most importantly, to the children themselves.

Again I’m stating the obvious, legalized child abandonment is clearly not pro-child.

To date, no state has ever shown conclusively that any child abandoned under this scheme was ever in immediate danger of being killed.

Just as we’ve seen in Nebraska, more often than not those abandoning the kids feel they have no other options and care deeply about the kids. They often view dumping them as a way of ‘protecting’ them, going so far as to in at least one case, insist after using the legalized abandonment apparatus that the mother still loved her son and wanted him to understand that she didn’t abandon him, and that she still wanted to see him. (Cognitive dissonance in the extreme.)

These are not those at risk of leaving babies in dumpsters.

Those who utilize the laws are simply entering the child welfare and adoption system through a newly created second door. A door that requires little to no paperwork, and has no waiting time to actually rid oneself of the kid. The ultimate in instant gratification abandonment.

As most states legalized child abandonment laws leave the womyn utilizing them anonymous, it has been impossible to build a profile of a ‘typical’ womyn who abandons her child under them. That said, while most states baby Moses laws marketing is aimed at ‘young girls’ often still in school, what little data can be culled from news reports etc, shows a very different profile, that of an older, often desperate womyn, sometimes married, sometimes with other kids.

Aging down Nebraska’s dump law to a 2.0 version narrowed to newborns still avoids the core issues those using the dump laws face.

Insisting over and over again ‘there is help out there’ while pointing the desperate into private faith based programs is again, the state abandoning its own responsibilities to its citizens.

The Governor closes with the following, making it clear what he wants to see is ‘infant’-based dump laws:

The few situations we’ve seen so far demonstrate the need for a change in Nebraska’s safe haven law. In the coming legislative session, I will advocate for changes that put the focus back on protecting an infant in danger. That should be our priority.

While this would ensure the infants- eventual kids- eventual adults will be silenced for a few years at least, all such a bill would really do is push back the timing on when the unresolved issues with the dump laws would begin to surface in that second batch of Nebraska dumpees.

Just as it took adoptees the time it takes infants to grow to age of majority, that 18 year-lag, and then those affected by the sealing of adoption records legislation in various states began to organize against sealed records, I predict the children of legalized abandonments will also face that 18 year-lag, and then begin to organize against what what done to them.

Every single day that these dump laws are in place is a day that yet more kids may suffer irrepiarable harm. The only genuine solution is full repeal.

The longer Nebraska politicians drag out debates about what is to be done is the larger the toll becomes, an ever increasing count of kids for whom the consequences are permanent.

I’ve already written about how the dump bills were built out of the structures fighting openness in adoption records.

Don’t condemn another generation to lives without the basic identity based building blocks they will need to live out their lives.

Learn from the example of what was done under the sealing of adoption records and the lifelong lasting legacy of harm that has caused, then understand, baby dump and child dump laws are just the latest structures built upon that flawed foundation.

As I’ve ended pretty much all my Nebraska dump law posts, I will continue to call for nothing short of the full repeal of legalized child abandonment laws.

They fail kids- for a lifetime.

UPDATE

Between the time I started this piece and finally posting it, the abandoned child from Iowa has since been sent back to Iowa. I suppose we can now label such a ‘return to sender’ abandonment. The 14 year-old is however, listed on Nebraska DHHS’s revised official count. (Link opens a PDF.)

***

Nine years ago the first of the dump laws, then called “Baby Moses Laws” passed in Texas, signed into law by then Governor George W. Bush.

As the dumps laws in every state except Nebraska have dealt with infants (with varying age limits,) until now, the oldest of the legalized child abandonments dumped as infants would now be roughly age 9. Whether or not the kids themselves were made aware of their abandoned status likely varies, kid to kid.

But this past July, Nebraska’s child dump law went into effect, allowing the legalized abadonment of kids up to age 19. Thus for the first time, we now had teens being dumped.

Until now, abandoned kids have had no voice politically nor societally.

There have been adults, notably adoptees/Bastards (among others) who have spoken out again and again against legalized child abandonment. But the voices of those most directly affected have been notably absent, as there’s an 18 year lag between being abandoned and reaching the age of majority.

This is precisely the same lag we as adopted people have had to contend with in advocating on our own behalf.

The one crucially important detail has emerged from the Nebraska legalized child abandonment disaster is that by covering teen dumps, the legislation has in effect jumped a timeline.

We no longer have to wait long years before we first begin to hear the voices of those legally abandoned while they grow up. Instead we can for the first time, actually listen to the words of a kid legally abandoned under Nebraska’s legalized abandonment law. And listen we should, because kids such as this anonymous girl are in some ways the only genuine voice of expertise on legalized child abandonment laws. She herself has directly experienced the consequences of them.

On September 20th, a 14 year-old pregnant girl was legally abandoned by her mother (who does not speak English, but uses her other 8 year-old daughter as a translator) at Omaha’s Immanuel Hospital. In the wake of the abandonment, the girl has fortunately, been able to return to her home.

Her mother had said she did not want to abandon her, but felt helpless, desperate, and scared.

“I wanted to do what’s best for her.”

As I’ve pointed out repeatedly in these Nebraska posts, the profile of the person legally abandoning the kids is not someone wanting to abandon, nor relinquish all contact with these kids, instead these are people at the ends of their ropes, with nowhere else to turn, who tend to care very deeply about the kids and want help.

In an interview she and her mother did with KMTV News, we finally hear the first person perspective of a kid who has been directly affected by the legalized abandonment laws. Speaking of her mother, the anonymous girl said:

“I thought I was not going to see her anymore. When I was there I was not happy. I was sad to be in there and not see my mom anymore.”

She continued:

“I don’t want anything to happen to kids like it happened to me,” the 14-year-old said.

(Be sure to see the video with the story, Mom Who Used Safe Haven for Teen Opens Up.)

Are Nebraska legislators listening?

Are State legislators nationally listening?

No kid wants to go through the ordeal of legalized abandonment. No kid should ever have to.

These laws are not good for kids, the very people they are supposedly being enacted on behalf of.

This girl was fortunate enough to be reunited with her family, an outcome both she and her mother wanted. But going through the legalized abandonment process is not soon to be forgotten, forgiven, nor ‘healed’. It’s an event this girl and her family will live with for the rest of their lives.

This is no less true for infants who are abandoned. But their voices are missing from these ‘debates’ over what do with the dump laws. If Nebraska pushes the age limit down to ‘infant’ all it does is join the rest of the nation in the long wait while these kids grow up.

Legislators will never have to deal directly with the consequences of the legislation they are passing, abandoned children will. They will be dealing with the consequences for the rest of their lives.

So in light of how unique this anonymous 14 year old’s words are, they bear repeating:

“I don’t want anything to happen to kids like it happened to me.”

The only questions that remain are is anyone listening and will anyone care?

***

As always, I personally, continue to advocate nothing less than full repeal of the legalized abandonment laws.

***

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.