State’s "Safe Haven" law used for the first time

A baby is safe with an Iowa foster family today after someone dropped her off at a hospital. Human Services won’t say where, after deciding to protect the identity of the parent, but it’s the first use of Iowa’s “Safe Haven” law since it was passed a couple years ago. The law shields parents from being prosecuted under abandonment or child-endangerment laws, if they take unwanted children to a hospital. DHS spokesman Roger Munns says the Safe Haven law was passed after the discovery of an abandoned newborn left in a snowy farm field shocked Iowans. Two or three years ago the case was called “Baby Chelsea” after a young mother allowed her newborn to die. That teenage mother is still in prison today. Munns says the Safe Havens law was crafted to give a “no questions asked” alternative to anyone who simply hands over a child to authorities. He says these are troubled girls who may actually deny their pregnancy, and when they suddenly have a child and want to make sure they can see that it’s okay, the law will let them. The human services department decided that to protect the person or persons responsible, they’re not telling the town or hospital where the newborn girl was dropped off Tuesday. He says one of the features that makes the law work is being able to bring the child anonymously, and without that protection, he fears it wouldn’t be so appealing. The child was born Tuesday and brought in the same day, healthy, and DHS will find a home as soon as parental rights are terminated. The child’s already in a pre-adoptive home, and Munns says the paperwork will be taken care of without delay to allow the child to be adopted. He thinks the process has to be done quickly. The same law directs social workers to tell the biological parents of the child of its adoption, if they can be located, but Munns says we may never know who they are.If the natural mother or father step forward, they can have input on the adoption. The only details given about the healthy newborn girl are that she was taken to a hospital somewhere in the state and left with a note saying the little girl had been born at home earlier in the day. It also said, “Please make sure she will be taken care of. And know she is loved very much. Just trying to do what is best.”