17-year-old mother faces neglect charge for abandoning newborn
Two Indianapolis women noticed the size-11 shoebox on the front porch of an aunt they were visiting. As they approached, they saw two tiny legs, kicking out over the edge of the box.
What they found on the doorstep, in the shoebox, just beneath a gray tank top and blue T-shirt was an 8-pound, 20-inch newborn girl.
The elements were cold as she shivered on a blue towel. Nearby was printed message in pencil: "I can’t take care of my baby. Please help."
About seven hours after finding the baby, police took the mother – a 17-year-old high school student in for questioning. Detectives said the girl had confided in a school counselor, who then called police.
The mother was later taken to a nearby hospital. She faces a preliminary charge of neglect of a dependent, a felony.
Under Indiana’s Safe Haven Law, parents can drop off their infants within 45 days of birth with no questions asked. Parents don’t even have to do it by their self. They can give the baby to someone else to drop off for them.
A spokesman stated unlawful abandonments continue because not enough mothers know about the Safe Haven Law.
Perhaps schools should include more information about the Safe Haven Law in their family planning or health classes. It just seems so tragic that a young girl should go through a birth by herself and then feel she has no recourse but to abandoned her child. Surely this girl would have made a different decision had she known.
What do you think is the best way for teens to be made aware of the Safe Haven Law?
Source: Courier Journal
every way possible- signs on buildings that are safe havens identifying them as such, parents, school, radio, posters (anywhere they’d be allowed- doctor’s offices, hospitals, downtown “hang-outs”)—put it in their faces so much that there’s no way they can’t know about it—-we should do the same for condoms.