Safe haven law can't save babies if it's not publicized
It was the funerals that drew attention to the problem. The media didn't seem concerned about the dead babies that were cropping up in Tim Jaccard's territory, but they were attracted to the flashy funerals with the helicopter flyovers, police color guards and bagpipe bands that turned out to honor abandoned newborns in New York City.
It was those funerals that brought public attention to the fact that people were abandoning newborns in bathrooms and recycling bins and plastic bags in parks. It was that public awareness that allowed Jaccard, a Nassau County police officer whose job it was to pick up those dead babies, to campaign for a safe haven law, a law that would let desperate mothers of newborns anonymously drop their babies off where they could be safe and leave without fear of the law.
At first, the idea was condemned as crackpot, legalizing baby dumping. Jaccard was kicked out of plenty of lawmakers' offices, but he didn't give up.
Today, 45 states have laws that allow mothers, mostly scared young teen-agers, to drop their newborns off at hospitals, fire stations or police stations, or even to flag down ambulances or police cars and hand over newborns.
Whether you like the law or not, it's better than the alternative: a trash can in a Kosciusko County factory, a plastic bag in an alley off Lafayette Street, a trash container where the baby is never discovered and eventually dumped into a garbage truck, compacted and taken to a landfill.
Indiana passed its safe haven law three years ago, but laws don't do any good unless people know about them, and absolutely nobody - not even police and fire departments and hospital emergency room staffs, much less young teen-age mothers - knows about the law in Indiana, says Robert Floyd, a public relations-advertising man who is helping promote the safe haven law. One reason is that the state hasn't promoted it. It didn't provide any money for promotion.
There have been news reports on the law - a few when it passed. But one news report doesn't do the job. Regular public education is needed, but there were no plans for that.
Wednesday morning, Floyd unveiled public service announcements to make the world aware that there are alternatives to the garbage can if you've hidden a pregnancy and now the baby has come. They feature Patricia Heaton, who appears on the TV sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond," and give a national hotline number people can call if they need information on the program. The number is 1-877-796-4673.
The haven concept works. Since Jaccard launched his program in New York, he hasn't had to respond to any more reports of dead, abandoned babies. He still gets calls for abandoned babies, but they're from mothers, wanting to give up a baby they just had moments before, or are about to have.
Babies like Molly McDonough. She was born on a rock in Central Park in New York city at 3 o'clock one summer morning. The reason she wasn't found dead the next day was because the mother, who was 15 or 16 and had hidden her pregnancy from her family, called Jaccard on a hotline number. He helped deliver the baby.
Today, instead of being buried under a Jane Doe or Baby Hope gravestone, Molly has been adopted by a New York City couple. She was at Wednesday's news conference, an example of how the program works, having a good time, playing in the grass, not really understanding the significance of the Baby John Doe gravestone just a few feet away, not understanding that in a different time or place, she could have ended up like that.
But that's New York, not Fort Wayne. The little-known law made no difference on Lafayette Street. It made no difference in that factory in Kosciusko County.
Floyd and others hope the public service announcements change that. All this, of course, depends on radio and TV stations to run the spots. It depends on whether schools and businesses will bother to display the posters that promote the safe haven law and the number people can call for advice.
It depends on whether you consider two babies in a year in the area a problem. It depends on whether you fear there are more babies ending up in trash bins that are never found.
JOURNAL GAZETTE - FRANK GRAY
contact: Frank Gray | (260) 461-8376 | fax (260) 461-8893
Frank Gray has held positions as a reporter and editor at The Journal Gazette since 1982, and has been writing a column on local issues since 1998. His column is published Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday.