Missouri Installs 'Safe Haven Baby Box' Where Mothers May Safely Surrender Babies
Missouri now has a “Safe Haven Baby Box,” which, prayerfully, will save the lives of newborns who may otherwise not live. The list of incidents of newborns being discarded like trash is all we need to see to realize how important these secured incubators are. I’m grateful, as a Missouri transplant, that one has been installed here, this one at the Mehlville Fire Protection District Station 2 in St. Louis County.
According to the Safe Haven Baby Boxes website, “A Baby Box is a safety device provided for under state’s Safe Haven Law and legally permits a mother in crisis to safely, securely, and anonymously surrender if they are unable to care for their newborn.” How does it work? The site continues by saying the box “is installed in an exterior wall of a designated fire station or hospital. It has an exterior door that automatically locks upon placement of a newborn inside the Baby Box, and an interior door which allows a medical staff member to secure the surrendered newborn from inside the designated building.”
As Breitbart News reported, State Rep. Jim Murphy said that although a Safe Haven law has been in effect in Missouri since 2002, it needed changes to produce more desired results. “When you gave up the baby you actually had to hand it to somebody, which was something that they found was a detriment to the whole process.”
The outlet explains that “when a person opens the door, a silent alarm goes out, and another alarm goes out once the baby is placed inside the bassinet in the box.” The baby receives a physical examination and then begins the process of being adopted in 30-45 days.
One of the narratives out there from pro-abortion people is that pro-life advocates do not care about babies after they are born. I have pushed back against that lie because believers in life are often the ones walking alongside those who find themselves reeling from an unexpected pregnancy, volunteering at pregnancy centers, making donations, fostering children, and adopting them, too. The Safe Haven Baby Boxes are yet another example of the commitment to caring about and saving the lives of babies upon arrival into this world.
The most vulnerable among us are too often thrown away as if they never existed, and if Safe Haven Baby Boxes can contribute to an end to this sickening reality, we need these boxes everywhere. Various examples reveal just how vital they are.
A newborn’s body was found in the back of a garbage truck in Plain City, Ohio, in June. WSYX6 reported that police said the “full-term newborn [was] from zero to one month of age” and quoted local Dimitri Price as saying, "It’s cruel" and that "there’s just so many other ways that he, she could have gone at it. Dropped it off somewhere, put it in a foster home, something like that instead of just killing it or dropping it off in the trash."
In May, People covered the story of 40-year-old Karima Jiwani of Georgia, who was finally arrested after allegedly attempting to murder her newborn in 2019. “Police allege Jiwani left ‘Baby India’ in a wooded area on June 6, 2019. The baby was found crying and covered in blood, with the umbilical cord still attached, by a man who told emergency responders that he heard the baby crying from his home.”
Photo: Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office via AP
What a gruesome, heartrending horror for this baby to endure. If Safe Haven Baby Boxes can prevent this kind of heinous act, they will be serving their purpose, although in this case, Forsyth County Sheriff Ron Freeman said that following Baby India’s birth, the mother drove a "significant amount of time" and that there was "no effort” on her part “to leave this child" where she “could be found." So she didn’t even take advantage of any opportunities to hand over her child to someone who could find hope and help.
Also in May, according to WKYC, two infants were found dead in a garbage can in Cleveland, Ohio, and a 16-year-old girl allegedly put them there. “According to a police report, the suspect's mother found the babies in the trash, and told authorities her daughter admitted to giving birth to them” before she “threw the babies in the garbage.” At the time of the WKYC report, this was being investigated as a homicide, but the cause of the deaths was not yet determined.
In New Mexico, a woman was convicted in May of having put her baby in a dumpster in January 2022. Thankfully, the baby survived with minor health issues. As KOB4 outlined, Alexis Avila was found guilty of “attempted first-degree murder and child abuse resulting in great bodily harm” and sentenced to 16 years. She will be about 34 years old when she finishes her sentence.
As if those examples were not enough, a 25-year-old Fullerton, California, woman named Venissa Maldonado was arrested and charged with “attempt[ed] murder and felony child abuse,” according to details from the Fullerton Police. NBC Los Angeles reported that “after finding the baby, officers began life-saving measures on the infant and called paramedics from the Fullerton Fire Department, who took the baby to a hospital.” The infant was “hospitalized in critical but stable condition.”
Photo: Fullerton Police Department
Why did Maldonado even do this? California has had a “Safely Surrendered Baby Law” since 2006, which, in part, allows “a parent or person with lawful custody [to] surrender a newborn confidentially, and without fear of prosecution, within 72 hours of birth. The law requires the baby to be taken to a public or private hospital, designated fire station or other safe surrender sites designated by the county Board of Supervisors,” the outlet explains. It even allows “a person with lawful custody” to “reclaim the child” within 14 days of surrender. I’m not sure what that reclaim process is, but I sure hope it’s a thorough one. But this mother did not utilize this law.
Perhaps Missouri’s State Rep. Jim Murphy was right when he said having to face a person has been a detriment to babies being safely surrendered rather than abandoned and even killed. I don’t get it; sane people, it seems, would choose the risk of being judged by someone as they give up their babies over choosing to kill their own—or any innocent life. But clearly, something isn’t clicking properly in the minds and hearts of anyone who can do the evil that is being done. And the thing is, these people aren’t judging them anyway; they’re there to help.
Missouri’s Safe Haven Baby Box is the 157th box, as it joins other states in demonstrating love and compassion toward those whose lives depend upon it. The list of states with these lifesavers is growing, thank God.