Are baby boxes really cool? A story of a California nurse who has been asked to be released from the safe haven law in the last decade
The baby could be pulled from the other side of the box by the firefighter, if they left it there. The fire department was trained in what they were supposed to do.
“It’s really simple from a policy matter,” Santa Clara University law professor Michelle Oberman told NPR’s All Things Considered in August. It isn’t required for you to face hard questions about what we owe people most impacted by abortion bans.
The first newborn to ever be surrendered in Florida was received by the Ocala Fire Rescue within the last 10 days. She declined to give an exact date to protect the infant’s anonymity.
Baby boxes aren’t a new invention. She was inspired to start her organization after seeing one in South Africa. The practice of leaving a child at a convent or place of worship, where they could be found on the findling wheels is centuries old in Europe.
While every state in the U.S. has some type of legislation that allows infants to be surrendered to the authorities, a United Nations committee wants the practice to end. And while some countries are outlawing the practice altogether, others, like Italy, began introducing even more high-tech devices for surrendering children in 2007. There are still dozens of crams for life in many regions of Italy.
Another criticism lies in how infrequently infants are surrendered. In Texas, the number of abortions and live-births far eclipse the mere 172 infants successfully surrendered under the state’s safe haven law since 2009, according to The Texas Tribune. According to a report from National Safe Haven Alliance, 4,505 infants were surrendered through safe haven laws in the United States in the last decade.
The baby is gorgeous, healthy and the Department of Child Services is looking for a forever home.
The boxes are installed into the exterior walls of the hospitals to allow newborns to be placed in them and then lock on the outside, triggering silent alarms to alert the staff.