Bastard Nation Action Alert and Letter: Kentucky HB447 Baby Drop Box Bill. Do Not Pass

The Kentucky Legislature has been closed down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it is scheduled to re-open (as of this writing) on April 14, 2020. We don’t know if that will happen, but now is a good time to drop a line to members of the Senate Health and Welfare Committee asking them to DO NOT Pass HB447.  HB447 is a Baby Drop Box bill, which if passed, will legalize the use of baby drop boxes –a hole in the wall–to legally and anonymously abandon infants up to the age of 30 days. The bill has already passed the House.

Bastard Nation sent a letter in opposition earlier today.

Read HB447 Legislative page

 

Senate Health and Welfare Committee

• Ralph Alvarado – (S) – Chair
• Stephen Meredith – (S) – Vice Chair
• Julie Raque Adams – (S)
• Tom Buford – (S)
• Danny Carroll – (S)
• Julian M. Carroll – (S)
• David P. Givens – (S)
• Denise Harper Angel – (S)
• Alice Forgy Kerr – (S)
• Morgan McGarvey – (S)
• Max Wise – (S)

 

Quick cut and paste:

Ralph.Alvarado@lrc.ky.gov, Stephen.Meredith@lrc.ky.gov.  Julie.Adams@lrc.ky.gov, Tom.Buford@lrc.ky.gov, Danny.Carroll@lrc.ky.gov, Julian.Carroll@lrc.ky.gov, David.Givens@lrc.ky.gov, Denise.HarperAngel@lrc.ky.gov, Alice.Kerr@lrc.ky.gov, Morgan.McGarvey@lrc.ky.gov  Max.Wise@lrc.ky.gov

Twitter:

@Alvarado4Senate  @jrajra  @dannycarrollky: HB447 #BabyDropBox DO NOT PASS anti-adoptee anti-family unethical

@kydavidgivens  @KYHarperAngel@aliceforgykerr  HB447 #BabyDropBox DO NOT PASS anti-adoptee anti-family unethical

@MorganMcGarvey  @maxwellwise  HB447 #BabyDropBox DO NOT PASS anti-adoptee anti-family unethical

 

Bastard Nation Letter

PO Box 4607

New Windsor, New York 12553-7845

bastards.org           614-795-6819           @BastardsUnite

April 4, 2020

RE: HB447—“Legalized “Baby Abandonment: Baby Boxes.  Currently in Senate Health and Welfare Committee

Dear Senator

Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization is the largest adoptee civil rights organization in the United States. We support only full unrestricted access for all adopted persons, to their original birth certificates (OBC) and related documents. We oppose “Safe Haven Baby Box” laws that “legalize” infant abandonment under certain circumstances.  These laws permit parents (or basically anyone) to legally and anonymously drop a newborn in a deposit box built into a wall at such facilities as fire stations, hospitals, and police stations. While the meaning behind this scheme is well-intentioned, we believe these laws and procedures are anti-adoptee, anti-adoption, anti-family, and unethical. The current Baby Box drive throughout the country reduces adoptees to nameless, familyless, historyless commodities—as some call us—gifts given to strangers with no thought of the consequences to our legal and psychological welfare, or that of our biological parents.

Adoptee rights activists, adoption advocates, and reformers, and child welfare advocates for over 20 years have opposed state Safe Haven laws as inimical to child’s best interest standards, unethical, and unnecessary. Little has been heard yet from them regarding Baby Boxes –Safe Haven on steroids–since boxes have been pretty much geographically limited to Indiana so far. There has been little public discussion outside of social media where adoptees greet Baby Boxes with anything from four-letter words to political critiques.

.aby Box advocates promote boxes as an easy solution for mothers so “desperate” that unless they can dump their newborns anonymously in a box in a wall they will kill their babies or at least discard them dangerously with absolutely no evidence. Proponents appear to view all mothers and women of child-bearing age, as potential child abusers and murderers.

Baby Box advocates claim that even Safe Haven laws, with their anonymous “relinquishment” provisions, are tricky and dangerous. Women, to be “safe” they claim, must have the ability shortly after birth to skulk around dark obscure (but “prominent”) spots outside hospitals, fire or police stations to drop their babies into a box, like trash, and walk away. No one will ever have to know.

Although, the current Baby Box initiative is a natural outgrowth of the Safe Haven movement, the National Safe Haven Alliance unofficially, and individual state Safe Haven organizations officially—the very people who developed Safe Haven laws –have joined us to oppose Baby Box laws. Most prominent of Safe Haven opponents are three pioneers of the original Safe Haven laws: A Safe Haven for Newborns (Florida) Save Abandoned Babies Foundation (Illinois) and AMT-Children of Hope (New York). While Bastard Nation and allies remain opposed to Safe Haven laws we share many of their concerns–with of course, our own specific critique and objections

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Bastard Nation and adoptee rights activists believe the implementation of Baby Boxes:

• Creates a parallel child welfare system that rejects informed consent and a full record of identifying information and social and medical histories of the newborn. Their use eliminates adoptees’ right to identity by denying their access to original birth and heritage records.
• Replaces professional best practice standards with unprofessional and unethical “relinquishment” by letting parents abandon solely for convenience or out of ignorance with no counseling, paper-signing, or discussion on alternatives such as government and private financial and material assistance for family preservation, temporary foster care, and legitimate adoption planning.
• Denies the non-surrendering parent the right of custody and to rear her or his own child. There is no mechanism in place to prove that the “surrendering” person has the legal right to do so. Abusive, embarrassed, or frightened partners, spouses or family members can use drop boxes without consent or knowledge of the (other) parent with no repercussions.
• Disenfranchises natural parents –particularly the non-surrendering parent (usually the father) –their right to due process by eliminating their ability to locate the child; thus denying them knowledge of (among other things) the dependency proceeding to which they are a party. The Putative Father Registry, touted as a safeguard, is pointless because (1) registries are unadvertised and unknown to the general public (2) useless since records are filed by the name of the known or suspected mother; (3) cannot be utilized if parents are married.
• Creates at-risk adoptions due to possible litigation from the non-surrendering parent or biological family members seeking custody.
• Contravenes the family reunification guidelines of the federal Adoption and Safe Families Act and parts of the federal Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) and tribal rights which can cause federal litigation.
• Encourages women to keep problematic pregnancies a secret by discouraging them from seeking family and professional communication, to seek assistance for sexual and physical abuse, mental illness, substance abuse, and social isolation—factors that cause nearly every newborn discard. Studies indicate that once a pregnancy is acknowledged and discussed the chance of discard is almost always abolished.
• Discourages women from seeking pre-and post-natal care and to give unsafe unattended birth.
• Hides crime such as rape, incest, and spousal and partner abuse.
• Preys on undocumented and refugee parents who can’t or won’t seek medical and social services for fear of arrest, deportation, loss of other children, and kids in cages. It forces them to give birth dangerously and secretly and to secretly abandon them if they can’t care for them.
• Does not decrease infant mortality rates. as suggested by promoters. According to NIH, the main causes of infant death are (1) birth defects. (2) preterm birth and low birth weight, (3) Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, (4) pregnancy complications and (5) accidents. Baby Boxes do not address solutions to any of those problems. In fact, the nobody-has-to-know-you-had-this-baby ideology of Baby Box promoters exacerbates 1, 2, and 4

Moreover, Safe Haven Laws vary throughout the country. Infants from birth to as old as 1-year in some states can be “legally abandoned.” Dumping a 1-year old with an established identity, family, social and medical history, and other connections create huge legal, ethical, emotional, and psychological issues for both the infant and family. Test-drive parenthood should not be encouraged or condoned by the state.

We are also concerned with issues of safety and economics

• Devices such as Baby Boxes are red-flagged by Homeland Security as targets of attack to disable first responders;
• They operate exclusively on electronic connectivity that can be disrupted, and require backup generator support.
• Require substantial building alterations and costs associated with building permits, contractor procurement, and possibly. contracted monitoring services.
• Currently installed boxes have been redesigned about two dozen times in the last two years. We have seen nothing to clarify the status of those boxes if and when new designs are available, or the cost and funds, and responsibility to replace them.
• Since laws will permit boxing from babes at birth to age 1, can they hold older babies? What about multiple births?
• Box procurement may interfere with state or local law mandating competitive bidding.
• Boxes are promoted as “voluntary” and “free” since they are purchased and installed through local fundraisers at no expense to taxpayers. Once they are in place, however, there is nothing to stop the state or local government from later making them mandatory. Currently, A3378 running in New Jersey requires all new fire stations, police stations, and hospitals to include “newborn safety devices.” If that happens, who pays for them? Moreover, according to news articles, some municipalities in Indiana have already partially paid for purchase, installation, and care of Baby Boxes.

Conclusion: Bastard Nation opposes Baby Boxes for myriad reasons Baby Boxes ignore the social-economic-political causes of newborn discard: poverty, inability to secure affordable medical treatment and care; denial or ignorance of pregnancy; Draconian immigration policy and practice, substance abuse, physical and sexual abuse, shame, crime, mental illness, dysfunctional families, social isolation, and poor communication skills. Their use disempowers parents —especially mothers—and doesn’t change the root causes of problems. They can make them worse. Baby Boxes don’t even meet band-aid solutions.

Baby Boxes are anti-adoptee, anti-adoption, and anti-family. They are a direct attack on adoptee civil rights, fathers’ rights, and ICWA. They fly in the face of contemporary child welfare practice and are a punch in the head to adoptees. Baby Boxes are misogynistic. They do not empower women and certainly not their abandoned children as they grow up, They trivialize pregnancy, commodity babies, and maintain adoption secrets and lies. They are promoted as an easy solution to very complex problems, and in the end, leave everyone behind. Certainly, there are better solutions.

We hope you all remain well during the shutdown—and when you return to the statehouse, please reject  HB447. Please vote Do Not Pass. Thank you.

Sincerely yours,

Marley Greiner

Executive Chair