Archive for the ‘safe haven’ Category

Nebraska To Close ”Safe Haven” Loophole

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008

An update to last week’s story about Nebraska’s Safe Haven law: Yesterday (October 20), the governor and members of the state legislature announced that when the legislature reconvenes in January, they will revise the law to conform to other states’ versions, setting the age limit at three days. Currently, Nebraska’s law allows parents to legally abandon any “child,” effectively setting the age limit at “under 18,” leading to several older children (including two teenagers from out-of-state) being turned over to state custody.

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Teenagers Abandoned Thanks to Loophole in ”Safe Haven” Law

Monday, October 13th, 2008

Many states have Safe Haven laws, allowing parents to leave their infants at hospitals or police or fire stations without fear of prosecution. The concept is, to put it bluntly, it’s better for newborns to be legally abandoned and turned over to the foster care system than to be left to die in a dumpster.

Nebraska’s version of the law wasn’t worded as carefully as the other, and specifies “children” rather than “infants” or “newborns,” and doesn’t set an upper age limit – which made the news recently when a Nebraska widower, who said he was “overwhelmed,” abandoned nine of his ten children, whose ages ranged up to 17 years.

Since then, two other teenagers, both of them from out of state, have been legally abandoned.

The Nebraska legislature plans to close this “loophole” when their new session begins in January – but personally, I disagree: Abandoning a child in this manner is an act of extreme desperation, and not something any parent is going to choose lightly. If a domestic situation is so bad that the parent is willing to permanently give up custody, then the alternative to being allowed to do so will likely be far worse.

Posted in Bill Bickel, Crimeweek, Nebraska, children, crime, safe haven | 7 Comments »