Safe Haven Laws

I think the law change you're suggesting would be terrible, and would do much more harm than good.

Currently in the UK, there are two options available for a woman who doesn't wish to keep her baby: the legal option of putting the child up for adoption and the illegal option of abandoning the baby. Almost everyone takes the first option.

If a third option became available, I suppose it might help some of the vanishingly small number of abandoned babies, though it certainly won't help all of them. However, it's very likely that many of those who currently use the legal adoption process would be tempted by the quick and easy "safe haven" option. This means all those babies don't have a chance to track their family history and parentage because it's all anonymous.

It also means that the mother doesn't have the option of changing her mind, or get the support she needs. I don't have any idea of the figures, but surely there must be many desperate women who say they want to give up their baby for adoption but then change their mind? Especially if they are struggling with PND or other issues. The paperwork process involved in adoption gives the mother time to reflect, get help for herself, and be sure that it's what she really wants. Imagine a woman with PND feeling she's hit rock bottom and all she needs to do is go to the fire station and hand over her baby. I think that would just be too tempting. And then a few days later she changes her mind, goes back to the fire station, but the baby is now gone, she has no proof that she's the mother because she didn't give her name. It sounds bloody awful.

@strawwaterbottle Im wondering how you are getting along with ur fight for the safe heaven law? I was also intersted in cause and was thinking about starting another petition.

or possibly suffering extreme PND
as PP have said we are talking about tiny numbers, and the possibility of prosecution I doubt is the cause as it's not a well known law nor is it enforced
in terms of safeguarding and ensuring the welfare of mothers and children we have a long way to go but I don't think safe havens is an important provision

Given so few infants are abandoned, I'd also wonder what the circumstances are - are these mothers who would use a safe haven type of scenario? Or are they for example mentally ill and so making illogical or confused decisions?

I really don't think they are a good idea - women might feel pressurised to leave their child. Who is going to ensure the woman has not been pressurised to give up her child or who is a victim of incest or rape?
That was my first thought.

There are plenty of abused and unregistered babies in the UK, sometimes born to migrants with no papers and sold to paedophiles.

Even babies we know about, that are born in hospital etc may or may not come to the attention of Social Services who may or may not notice abuse and may or may not be able to intervene in time.

We can't and don't keep all those children safe. I get that an abandoned baby might get a better and safer start to life with foster carers but adoption is normally open now because we know about the trauma caused to children by not knowing where they came from.

As there is no way of interviewing the women and girls who abandon their babies in a safe haven we won't know if they have been coerced into giving the baby away so they can continue being prostituted, for example. What happens if we introduce this and go from one baby a year to several thousand? Is that a good thing? What if the knock on effect is that pimps don't bother to take their slaves for an abortion, but advertise her as pregnant? (She'd be lucky to get the baby out and to a safe haven rather than it being sold tbh)

Also with housing being allocated by need, it might be worse for the mother to give up her child, it could cost her a potential hostel place. It's certainly likely to affect her mental health. Better to get her out of her situation with her child, IMO.

It's difficult to weigh up the benefits of being able to abandon a child with the concerns. I don't think we need this service here but I can see why some of you believe we do.

So the proposed Safe Havens in the Uk would be for the one baby a year who is abandoned, obviously not for the older children ?

To my knowledge, women / girls who abandoned newborn babies in the UK are never charged by the police. They are seem as troubled and in need of medical and other help and it would not be in the public interest to prosecute them.

Some organizations include children as well as newborns in the count which is why it ranges from 12 to over 100.

@StrawWaterBottle

Your link is to the petition and I can’t see any data there.

I don't live in the UK nowadays, but the UK used to have a much better attitude to the mothers of abandoned babies than in some countries. Usually when an abandoned baby was found they would try to find the mother to help her rather than to condemn her. Has that changed?

Could you say where you got the figures of 50 children a year from ? Because the government statistics for England show a total of 12 babies abandoned in the period 2005 - 2014. That’s just over one a year.

Of course that’s a tragedy for each mother and baby but the numbers are tiny and probably don’t justify a whole new resource.

AFAIK almost babies are left in busy places like shopping centres where they are found quickly.

www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/numberofabandonedbabies/birthsmetadata2014tcm77230492.pdf

The main issue for foundling children isn’t lack of medical information. It’s the psychological distress of knowing they were abandoned and not knowing anything about their family background and the circumstances of their birth.

This isn’t something we should want to encourage as an alternative to adoption.

I believe we should absolutely aim to deal with causes but until we live in a perfect world we can not ignore the consequences to and should have ways to mitigate these

Except you are talking about energy into this mitigation instead of putting energy into dealing with the causes.

In the USA particularly, single mothers often have to work two jobs to earn enough money to feed their children, meaning that they neither get to enjoy spending much time with their children or have much of an opportunity to teach them and keep them safe.

I think, if there are any studies comparing countries where babies are abandoned, we would find many more instances of abandonment in countries with very little support for single mothers.

With ancestry DNA testing so readily available these days I think we will need to move on from the idea that you can give away a baby and not be traced later.

There was coverage of this in the news a few years ago when they introduced 'baby boxes' in Germany.

www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jun/10/unitednations-europe-news

I really don't think they are a good idea - women might feel pressurised to leave their child. Who is going to ensure the woman has not been pressurised to give up her child or who is a victim of incest or rape? My impression from news stories over the years is that women normally abandon babies in public spaces where they are likely to be found very quickly. I also think there is a funding issue. If we provide safe havens, then funding is likely to be taken from maternity services. I can see why they exist in the US but we should be concentrating on making sure no pregnant woman feels she has no option but to abandon her child and has access to good ante natal and post natal care.

Anyone in charge of an unwanted child would be best to hand it in to a safe place, no questions asked. I speak from the heart and the head, and hideous experience.

If someone was in charge of an unwanted, hated dog, of course that dog would be cruelly treated. Of course the owner, or possibly a family member, would be best to have a dog rescue sanctuary where the animal could be left, without being deterred through fear of repercussions. The only thing that matters is a simple way to rescue, and rehome, for the welfare of the animal. Of course children need, and should have, the same no-obstacle rehoming chances as a dog needs .

U.K. has under 1% of the world's population, but ranks third in the world for known live stream child abuse, including use of babies, often with encouragement of mothers . Nobody can know why a baby or child might need urgent rehoming. No system is safeguarding, if it prevents immediate rescue by any complications, delay, questioning, beaurocracy and fear.

I think more support without stigma would also be a huge help in terms of prevention

I agree, this is much more important.

In 17th Century Ireland, the English had managed to colonise the entire country and introduced the concept of illegitimacy and shame for single mothers. This directly resulted in huge numbers of abandoned babies.

This safe haven idea seems to be rooted in dealing with consequences rather than dealing with the causes. Even if a young girl has deeply religious and heartless parents, she would still be less likely to abandon her baby if she knew that she can afford to live independently and bring it up.

Yes, there are real disadvantages to someone leaving a baby in that way, so I think the question is, will a law like this prevent more problems than it creates? Is there a better way to make the situation better for those moms and babies? Because not only do you have a baby with no link to the mom, you have a mother, often quite young, and distressed, and in trouble, who is not being helped.

The US has so many of them for a number of reasons, but I think the main one is really lack of social support and medical care. If you are really poor in the US, there are not a lot of choices for you.

The US safe haven laws only apply to babies under three weeks of age, presumably because they are designed as an alternative to women dumping their unwanted baby in a bin. Which some women do as an alternative to adoption/abortion.
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I don't think they are meant to apply to situations where a mother is finding they can't cope with an older infant who turns out to have special needs, or aren't coping with motherhood generally after they've given birth to a child they thought they wanted initially.

Safe Haven imo shouldn't apply to the latter situations. In those situations other options should be available, eg social services and other suggestions given above.

Children given up in those circumstances will never have any access to medical or family history. They may wonder forever about their cultural background.

It is better than being left somewhere unsafe, but not something that should be felt to be consequence free. Children need access to their origins, at least in a basic way.

To be completely clear I didn't mean consequences in terms of some kind of prosecution or warning for the mother, more as checking on the background and circumstances and being able to offer support and preventing it from happening again (repeat unwanted pregnancy, health checks, checks for abuse etc...and then social services and the police could be involved if something criminal was going on.)