Have you heard about this?
In July, Nebraska passed a "safe haven" law allowing parents to abandon their children (up to 18 years old) without penalty.
The law was meant to target infants, but there have been several teenagers abandoned at Nebraska hospitals since July (23 children total, not sure what the ages are).
Parents are even crossing state lines to take advantage of the law.
UPDATE: Neb. governor accelerates fix of safe-haven law:
"Heineman had planned to wait until the next regular legislative session convened in January, but changed his mind as the number of children dropped off at hospitals grew. Two teenagers were abandoned Tuesday night alone, and three children dropped off previously did not even live in Nebraska.
"We've had five in the last eight days," Heineman said in explaining why he called a special session. "We all hoped this wouldn't happen."
2 comments:
I just heard about it last week. I was telling Josh that we have a Safe Haven law here but only for the first 3 days after birth. I couldn't believe they didn't have an age limit on their law. On any given day, I might be tempted. It's just not right, although I am sure there were incidents that prompted it, but as a rule...?
OMG Carla, I nearly laughed out loud in class with your comment, "On any given day, I might be tempted."
Nebraska is looking to amend the law to limit it to 3 days. I was astonished that they left the law so vague and open-ended but one thing I've learned in law school is that most legislators are not lawyers and are mostly idiots, and hence we get a lot of stupid laws on the books! At least it keeps lawyers and judges in business...
It's just horrible though to think of these parents who would do this.
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