Teenagers Abandoned Thanks to Loophole in ”Safe Haven” Law
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.
October 14th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
I agree. I think it’s probably really good for those kids that they were “abandoned” by their father.
October 15th, 2008 at 6:29 am
Obviously, they’re not giving up legal custody of these kids; the teen girl from out of state was returned to her family. And if she was returned, how bad could the situation have been? I thought I read she was left just to teach her a lesson or something.
October 15th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
There are other ways, they just have to be done legally as well. Years ago my ex-wife had a child from a former relationship that had an extra male chromosome. Because of this he was very aggressive. My insurance covered instutionalizing for a while but when the money ran out the institution wanted to give him back to us, a move our neighbors did not care for. At 14 he was bigger and stronger than I was. For our/his safety we turned to the state and they took him on in a legal manor.
What was funny was when the judge asked his mom if she wanted to fight this she said no, I asked for it. It seems that the proceedings were normally used to take children away, not give them up.
May 3rd, 2009 at 8:14 pm
Hello. And Bye.
March 10th, 2010 at 8:52 pm
Todd Cowle Municipal Bond Credit Report synthesizes, analyzes and presents aggregate credit information and trends in the municipal bond market. The report includes municipal bond rating information from the three major rating agencies – Moody’s Investor Services, Standard and Poor’s and Fitch Ratings.
March 17th, 2010 at 12:18 am
Todd Cowle Municipal Bond Credit Report synthesizes, analyzes and presents aggregate credit information and trends in the municipal bond market. The report includes municipal bond rating information from the three major rating agencies – Moody’s Investor Services, Standard and Poor’s and Fitch Ratings.
August 20th, 2010 at 9:56 am
hi i am new here just wana say hi to all members