Nebraska Safe Haven Law

Thank you Gov. Heineman for FINALLY calling a special session of the state legislature to fix this horrible bill. For those of you living outside of the fine state of Nebraska, we have a safe Haven Law that allows parents to drop off their kids at local hospitals and not face prosecution for child abandonment. The law was intended to protect new born infants. In a stroke of genius our state legislature failed to put an age limit on the children being left.

So far we have had 23 children left at area hospitals. One mother drove all the way from Detroit to leave her son at CU Medical Center. The 23rd child was a 17 y/o left at Bryan LGH in Lincoln. Our legislature is not scheduled to meet until next year and the Governor has cited the high cost of calling a special session as his reason for waiting to amend the law until next year. How much money are we having to spend in social services to handle all these kids? Think of all the therapy involved with a 12 y/o whose mother wanted to relinquish her rights as a parent? The law was intended to help protect children, specifically infants. How letting this go on for months has been in the best interest of any child is beyond me. Won't it be a great story to tell down the road to their own kids someday. "Yeah I remember the time mom drove us all the way to Omaha to leave me. You kids are lucky that I want you"

And we have now made National news with this as there is now a link on CNN.