Installed at a fire station in Carmel, Indiana, the Safe Haven Baby Box looked like a container for receiving returned library books. It had been available for three years to anyone who wanted to abandon a baby there anonymously.
But it had never been used — until early April. When the alarm went off, firefighter Victor Andres opened the box and, to his astonishment, found a newborn wrapped in towels.
The discovery made local news, which praised the mother’s courage and described the incident as “a time for celebration”. Then, in the same month, Andres took another baby out of the box, this time a newborn girl. In May, a third baby appeared. By summer’s arrival, three other babies had been dropped off in other parts of the state that rely on baby crates.
Baby boxes are part of the safe haven movement, which has for years been closely linked to anti-abortion activism. Safe havens offer desperate mothers a way to give their newborns up for adoption anonymously — thereby, their advocates say, avoiding harming, abandoning or even killing the babies.
The shelters in question can be boxes, which allow parents not to talk to anyone or even be seen when they deliver their babies. Traditionally, refuges are places like hospitals or fire stations where staff are trained to accept babies delivered in person by mothers or fathers in crisis.
All 50 US states have safe haven laws designed to protect mothers who give up their babies for adoption from criminal prosecution. The first such measure, known as the Baby Moses Act, was passed in Texas in 1999 after several women abandoned newborns in garbage cans or dumpsters.
But something that began with a view to preventing the most extreme cases of baby abuse has grown into a broader phenomenon, supported especially by the religious right.
In the past five years, more than 12 states have passed laws allowing the installation of baby crates or expanding safe haven options. Reproductive health and child welfare experts say deliveries of babies to safe havens are likely to increase after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
During oral arguments in the lawsuit, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett suggested that safe haven laws offer an alternative to abortion, allowing women to avoid “the burden of caring for children.” In the court’s decision, Judge Samuel Alito cited the safe haven laws, describing them as “a modern advance” that made abortion rights unnecessary.
Many adoption and women’s health experts don’t see safe havens as a panacea. For them, when a woman delivers her baby in this scenario, it’s a sign that she’s fallen through the cracks of support systems. She may have hidden her pregnancy or given birth without prenatal care. She may experience domestic violence or mental illness, be drug dependent, or live on the streets.
Adoptions themselves can also be problematic. Women may not know that giving up their children is giving up their parental rights, and children are left with little information about their origins. If a mother or father uses a safe haven, “it’s because there’s been a crisis and the system has already failed,” says Ryan Hanlon, president of the National Adoption Council.
strengthening the movement
Deliveries of babies to safe havens are still rare. The National Alliance for Safe Havens estimates that 115 legal deliveries took place in 2021. In recent years there have been more than 100,000 adoptions a year in the country and more than 600,000 abortions. Studies reveal that the vast majority of women who have been denied an abortion are not interested in the possibility of adoption and end up raising their children.
But the safe haven movement has been gaining prominence, in part thanks to the action of Monica Kelsey, founder of Safe Haven Baby Boxes, which started as an anti-abortion activist.
With Kelsey and her allies lobbying across the country, states like Indiana, Iowa and Virginia have been looking to make it easier to deliver babies to safe havens by making the process faster and anonymous, allowing delivery of older babies or letting parents who deliver a child leave the premises without speaking to another adult or sharing any medical history.
Some people who work with children left in safe havens are especially concerned about baby crates, which now number more than 100 across the country.
“Is this baby being delivered without coercion?” asks Micah Orliss, director of the Safe Delivery Clinic at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. “I wonder if this is a mother who is going through a difficult time and could benefit from a little time and conversation, in a cordial situation, to help her make her decision?”
To use one of Kelsey’s baby boxes, mom or dad opens a metal drawer and finds a temperature-controlled hospital crib. When the baby is in the crib and the drawer is closed, it locks automatically; the mother cannot reopen it. An alarm is automatically triggered, and on-site personnel can access the crib.
The baby box also triggers a call to 911. Twenty-one babies have been left in baby boxes since 2017, and the average time a baby spends in the box is less than two minutes, says Kelsey.
It has already raised funds to erect dozens of billboards advertising the safe haven option. The ads feature a photo of a handsome firefighter holding a newborn in his arms and include the Safe Haven Baby Box emergency hotline number.
Kelsey says she’s been in touch with lawmakers across the country who want to install baby crates in their regions. She predicts that within five years, her boxes will be present in all 50 states.
Due to anonymity, information about parents using safe havens is limited. But Micah Orliss, from the safe haven clinic in Los Angeles, does psychological and developmental assessments of about 15 babies a year delivered to these locations. In many cases, it accompanies babies in their first two years of life.
Their research revealed that more than half of children have health or developmental problems, in many cases resulting from inadequate prenatal care.
Gray legal areas
For some women seeking help, the first point of contact is the Safe Haven Baby Box emergency hotline. When mothers call this hotline, they receive information about where they can legally hand over their children and about the traditional adoption process.
Safe haven organizations say they inform people that the anonymous delivery of a baby is a last resort and that they offer information on how to keep their babies, including ways to get diapers, money for rent and a temporary nursery. But, says Kelsey, her organization does not inform mothers, unless they request the information, about legal deadlines for recovering their baby.
Because these deliveries are anonymous, they often lead to closed adoptions. Biological parents cannot choose adoptive parents, and adopted children are left with little or no information about their family of origin or their medical history.
Hanlon of the National Adoption Council points to research showing that, in the long run, biological parents are more satisfied to give up their children if the biological and adoptive parents are in a relationship. In cases involving a safe haven, if a mother changes her mind, she must prove to the state that she is fit to raise her child.
Birth mothers are not immune to legal risks and may not be able to navigate the minutiae of different states’ safe haven legislation, says Lori Bruce, a medical ethicist at Yale University.
Many states protect mothers who deliver children from criminal prosecution if the babies are healthy and unharmed. But mothers in a serious crisis situation – for example, who are drug addicts or victims of domestic violence – may not be protected from this possibility if their newborn babies are affected in some way.
For Bruce, the chance that a traumatized mother who has just given birth “will be able to Google the laws correctly” is slim. With the repeal of Roe v. Wade, “we know we’re going to have more abandoned babies,” he says. “My fear is that this will mean that more prosecutors will be able to prosecute women for abandoning their babies in unsafe conditions or for failing to strictly obey the laws.”
