Focus shifts to safe havens for newborns amid US abortion controversy

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The author is a contributing columnist based in Chicago.

Over a decade ago, while living in China as the FT’s Shanghai correspondent, I stumbled upon a discarded baby on the street. Both of my adopted children had also been abandoned shortly after birth. This piqued my interest when US Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, herself an adoptive mother, posed the question of why Americans couldn’t utilize “safe haven” laws to drop off their newborns at designated locations instead of resorting to abortion.

Barrett made this remark during the oral arguments of Dobbs vs Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the landmark case that overturned the US constitutional right to abortion. The aftermath of this ruling has left the US abortion landscape in disarray, with an influx of new state laws severely limiting or eliminating access to abortion for millions of Americans.

So, what about Barrett’s casual proposition that Americans use safe haven laws, available in all 50 states, to legally and anonymously surrender their children at designated locations, including placing them in a climate-controlled “safe haven baby box” for immediate retrieval by medical personnel?

Infant abandonment has a long history globally, with today’s US baby boxes being descendants of medieval Italian “ruota” or abandonment wheels built into the windows of Italian foundling homes. However, they remain relatively new and highly controversial in America. Safe haven laws were first enacted in Texas in 1999, known as the “Baby Moses” law, after several widely publicized cases of infants being abandoned in trash bins or public restrooms. However, these laws have become a casualty of US political division, with the left viewing them as a political endeavor connected to the religious right, and comments such as Barrett’s only fueling the controversy.

Have more women started using safe haven laws after the Dobbs ruling? According to the activist group Safe Haven Baby Boxes, the number of baby boxes has nearly doubled to 156 across 10 states since the Supreme Court ruling, and the National Safe Haven Alliance reports a 10% increase in crisis call volume during this period. However, the numbers are still relatively small. The alliance confirms that there have been 40 safe haven surrenders and 19 illegal abandonments this year, resulting in the deaths of 15 babies.

Marley Greiner from Stop Safe Haven Baby Boxes Now states that 11 babies have been left in boxes so far this year, surpassing any previous full year, although it remains a rare occurrence. Experts in safe haven initiatives believe it’s premature to determine whether this number will surge with the implementation of new abortion restrictions.

The exact figures regarding US abortions following the Dobbs ruling remain uncertain. The organization #WeCount, which aims to provide post-Dobbs abortion statistics, estimates that there were 25,000 fewer abortions in the formal US healthcare system during the first nine months after the ruling. Dr. Alison Norris, #WeCount co-chair and associate professor at The Ohio State University’s College of Public Health, acknowledges that many individuals may have resorted to self-managing their abortions by purchasing pills online. While adoption and safe havens are valuable options, she emphasizes that they cannot fully replace access to abortion care.

Pam Stenzel, director of the Safe Haven Baby Boxes crisis hotline, argues that these boxes are necessary because babies continue to die from illegal abandonments. She highlights the recent case of newborn twins found in a rubbish bag at a Chicago daycare center, resulting in their tragic deaths.

Stenzel claims that women who use baby boxes fear that relinquishing their newborns to firefighters or emergency room nurses would compromise their anonymity. However, Dawn Geras, founder of the Save Abandoned Babies Foundation, states that mothers who personally surrender their babies can receive medical care, and over 25% of them either raise the child themselves or make adoption plans.

Personally, I regret that baby boxes have become entangled in the complex web of US abortion politics. While women seeking to anonymously surrender babies are rare, I’m relieved that safe havens are available to them. This would have been a much better alternative for the baby I found in Shanghai. At that time, the parent had no choice but to leave the child outside a donut shop on a cold winter evening and hope that someone would find her quickly.