Nebraska's Safe-Haven Law

some historical perspective; when I first went to work in child welfare any parent could (and often did) simply drop off any child under the age of 18 at their local social services office for the purpose of foster-care. This often occurred in early summer and the parent(s) would then pick up the same children in the fall when school started. There was no courts involved nor was there any financial responsibility incurred by the parent(s). Beginning in 1973 federal and state laws began to enact legislation prohibiting such actions as being nothing more than abandonment. with public clamor rising over abandoned babies/newborns, laws (state laws) were enacted in haste poorly written which are now coming to fruition.

It's a shame that more attention isn't paid to issues such as this. I remember Dys telling me of a couple having a custody battle over which one would have to take the kids.

The story about Nebraska's poorly written law is only a small example of what happens to children when they are no longer wanted.

I find it very interesting that issues of child well-being has so little interest to a2k posters.

Whenever I hear of a patricide,
I feel glad that I don 't have any children.

This also has that effect.
One never knows, in advance,
how well he will get along with anyone else,
including people of any age;
how compatible personalities will be.
Harmony of personalities is not controlled by genetic relationship.


I was rather pleased when my father left home,
and asked me for a lift to the airport (Idlewild).
I complied. I remember him taking exception
to my buying so much flight insurance on him.

I don 't know if I might be accused of abandoning him there.

Sometimes, I have given them unexpected cash, to cheer them up,
like dropping dimes n quarters into the grass near them,
from passing hot air balloons. I think thay might like that.
I deemed it unlikely that thay 'd anticipated that, before it happened.

As I remember childhood, it had a lot of boredom
alternating with monotony.

interesting david how you have turned a topic about childrens rights into a diatribe about you; egocentrimism knows no bounds.

That 's a profound statement there, Dys.

U did not see that backward.

I don't think it's really lack of interest. I think it's more the feeling that here is another thing we have screwed up on as country and we don't know how to fix. I wish there was such a thing as parenting classes in High School. I wish Americans would be willing to fund sex education before teens start having sex. I wish we could, as a society, make birth control cheap and easy for all, but I know none of it is going to happen. As a society, we have chosen to hold onto our money rather than create programs that might make our country a better place for all children.

50.1 percent of America likes to pretend we all will practice "family values" because a self-proclaimed Christian is in the White House. It hasn't been working. I doubt things are going to change anytime soon.

the "moral majority" is chokin' us all...

Gosh.


Trying to get my head around this.


Better a mother ship of some kind, than none.....thinking...

I have been following this in the news. I believe the state will end up rewriting the law, in time.

How ?

Ain't just the USA.

I must say, I think it better for there to be SOMEWHERE for parents who are that overwhelmed or irresponsible to leave their children rather than the kids just being abused or thrown out or killed.

As Dys said re the US, there used to be enough resourcing here for emergency care for kids whose parents were not coping to be found reasonably readily when families were in crisis.....so that there was a chance to try to sort things out.

Now, the care system is so burdened that we have kids who have been removed with nowhere to go, so they are in motels and so on with extremely expensive and often very inexperienced carers.

I can see that it is unfair for Nebraska to be used by folk from other states, but, if there is a need for this sort of thing it clearly is a national problem and ideally there needs to be some sort of national system.

That's a hell of a place to be leaving older kids, though.

I assume the hospital is supported by local child protection/welfare folk?

Teen violence against parents is a growing problem, and I note that older kids are being left for being "uncontrollable".

It is sad that families have not been able to experience early intervention to try to minimise this sort of problem.

But as I said earlier, hospitals have tended to become a kind of last mother-ship for a whole range of social problems...and I guess SOME kind of last resort is better than none.

By having meetings and voting on it.

It would be written in Spanish as well as English.

LINCOLN, Neb. " Deciding he could wait no longer, Gov. Dave Heineman said Wednesday he will call a special legislative session to fix a safe-haven law that in just a few months has allowed parents to abandon nearly two dozen children as old as 17.

Heineman had planned to wait until the next regular legislative session convened in January, but changed his mind as the number of children dropped off at hospitals grew. Two teenagers were abandoned Tuesday night alone, and three children dropped off previously did not even live in Nebraska.

"We've had five in the last eight days," Heineman said in explaining why he called a special session. "We all hoped this wouldn't happen."

The special session will begin Nov. 14. That's less than two months before the regular legislative session, but the governor and others see a need to act quickly.

"This law needs to be changed to reflect its original intent" to protect infants, Heineman said during a news conference Wednesday.

The law, which was signed by Heineman in February and took effect in July, prohibits parents from being prosecuted for leaving a child at a hospital. Nebraska was the last state to approve such a law.

Use of the word "child" was a compromise after legislators disagreed about what age limit to set, but that decision made Nebraska's safe-haven law the broadest in the nation by far. Most states have age limits ranging from 3 days to about a month.

Ed, there was a spot in the local about a KC girl (16 and a single mother) who just had a relative take her there and leave her.

Charges are being considered against the girls mother.

an aunt took her and dropped her off.

Changing the law won't change people, but it will stop a lot of this kind of stuff.