Safe Haven Laws

[StrawWaterBottle]

"Around 50 babies are abandoned each year in the UK, that's one a week. As it is illegal to abandon a baby in the UK, desperate women will often leave them in areas that are cold and unsafe, that is why the UK needs a law like the Safe Haven law that is active in all 50 States in America."

"The Safe Haven law typically allows unharmed children under 3 weeks of age to be surrendered at a fire station, hospital or other designated place with no names taken and no questions asked. This ensures that babies are not abandoned in cold or dangerous conditions.
Whilst this is a highly emotive issue and some will argue that it encourages irresponsibility, this law will not encourage pregnant women to abandon their children, what it will do is protect societies most vulnerable."

The above was taken from the petition to introduce safe haven laws in the U.K.

petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/121783

It only got 404 signatures in 2016 but I personally believe that this is a very important issue. From my own experiences I believe we absolutely should introduce these laws in the U.K. But I realise that is just my own opinion so would like to hear others on it, particularly from a feminist point of view.

So do you think we should introduce safe haven laws in the UK? Why/why not?
What kind of parameters would you place on it? Different states have different timescales in which you are allowed to surrender the baby
What feminist issues do you think surround this?
Any other questions, theories/issue you may think of.

I realise it's late and I won't have thought of everything but I think this is a very important issue that I haven't seen discussed before on MN.

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

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?

@C0RA

My original source is linked in my OP

@Coyoacan

I have thankfully never been in the situation myself so I don't know how it is practically approached but certainly in law it is condemned as criminal.

@StrawWaterBottle

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

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

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.

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.

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?

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

So if not safe havens I think we need to completely decriminalise the action of a abandoning a baby. Whether or not the law is often acted on it is still written into law and thus a mother can be prosecuted for it, I think we should completely eliminate the possibility of this if safe havens aren't introduced.

@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.

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.