The Florida House
The Florida House Health and Human Services Committee held a hearing for H1217–baby box bill. Unfortunately, the Florida legislature, as we learned yesterday, does not accept electronically transmitted testimony. We then sent this testimony as a letter to each member of the committee and to sponsor Rep, Mike Beltran The bill passed favorable 15-0 with no testimony or questions.
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New Windsor, New York 12553-7845
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H1217—“Legalized “Baby Abandonment: Baby Boxes
Florida House Health and Human Services Committee
February 18, 2020
Submitted Testimony/Letter in Opposition
Submitted by
Marley E. Greiner. Executive Chair
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 as anti-adoptee, anti adoption, anti-family, and unethical. The current Baby Box drive 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 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, and there has been little public discussion outside of social media where adoptees greet Baby Boxes with anything from four-letter words to political critiques.
Baby 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. 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 anonymously 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******
Bastard Nation and adoptee rights activists believe the implementation of Baby Boxes:
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 useless since records are filed by the name of the mother.
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Creates at-risk adoptions due to possible litigation from the non-surrendering parent or biological family members seeking custody.
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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.
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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.
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Discourages women from seeking pre-and post-natal care and to give unsafe unattended birth.
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Hides crime such as rape, incest, and spousal and partner abuse.
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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.
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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.” While we oppose all Safe Haven schemes, dumping a 1-year old with an established identity, family, social and medical history, and other connections creates huge ethical, emotional, and psychological issues for both the infant and family.
We are also concerned with issues of safety and economics
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Devices such as Baby Boxes are red-flagged by Homeland Security as targets of attack to disable first responders;
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They operate exclusively on electronic connectivity that can be disrupted, and require backup generator support.
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Require substantial building alterations and costs associated with building permits, contractor procurement, and possibly contracted monitoring services.
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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 when new designs are available, or the cost and funds, and responsibility to replace them.
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Since laws will permit boxing from babes at birth to age 1, can they hold older babies? What about multiple births?
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Box procurement may interfere with state or local law mandating competitive bidding since they are manufacturing by onlyone company.
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.
Baby Boxes are anti-adoptee, anti-adoption, anti-family. They fly in the face of contemporary child welfare, well-mother and child, and adoption “best practice. They are a punch in the head to adoptees. Baby Boxes do not empower women and certainly not their abandoned children as they grow up, They trivialize pregnancy, commodify babies, and maintain adoption secrets and lies. Baby Boxes are promoted as an easy solution to very complex problems, and in the end, leave everyone behind. Certainly, there are better solutions.
New York Adoptee Rights Coalition
