INDIANAPOLIS, IN – Indiana’s Safe Haven law currently allows parents to legally and confidentially give up their newborns at fire stations, police departments and hospitals.
But now, that law moves a step closer to potentially saving even more young lives.
Indiana passed the safe haven law 15 years ago, allowing an adult to give custody of a newborn to any hospital emergency room, police or fire department.
In that time, 13 babies have been relinquished using the law, while 33 were abandoned.
Fort Wayne firefighter and paramedic Monica Kelsey says that not enough parents know about the Safe Haven law—and that there needs to be one last desperate option for parents.
“There are these girls that don’t want their faces seen and we’re finding babies abandoned in woods, creeks, dumpsters. Those are the babies we’re targeting with these boxes. those are the women that need us.” Kelsey told WRTV.
Kelsey says the baby “drop boxes” would allow a woman to open the door, placing an infant inside, “There’s going to be a weight down here. once the weight is down, a trip to 9-1-1 goes off.”
The baby box in already in use in other countries, Indiana could become the first in the nation to use them.
The quasi-incubators would be placed where a parent could drop off a newborn at a Safe Haven location.
It passed the house 94 to zero on Tuesday and now goes to the Senate.
If it becomes law, supporters say that 100 of the privately funded boxes will be deployed by July of 2016.
Kelsey says, “We want girls to choose to go to their crisis pregnancy centers, to their family physicians to get help during their pregnancy. We want them to know that this is an option if they find they have no other choice.”
