Strollerderby : safe haven law

Teen Mom Turns Herself in to Safe Haven

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Just as Nebraska’s uniquely forgiving Safe Haven law is on the verge of being amended, a young mother makes a case for keeping it just the way it is. Currently, it’s legal to abandon children up to 18 years of age at a hospital. But since the law went into affect in July, so many teenagers (and zero babies) have been abandoned at hospitals that Nebraskan legislators are looking to revise the law so that it’s only applicable to infants who are three days old or younger.

But here’s an important use of the country’s only teen-inclusive safe-haven law that many hadn’t foreseen: a 16-year-old mom walked into an Omaha hospital, hoping to find a safe haven not only for her 10 month-old son, but for herself.

The young mother said that she had been physically and emotionally abused, and that her mother had kicked her out of the house. The teenager and her son are now in foster care, and her mother will most likely face prosecution.

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Nebraska Dad Who Dumped Nine Kids Speaks Out

Photo: Huffington Post

Finally, Some Good News from Nebraska

JeanneSager — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 17:53:00 GMT

Sometimes it takes hitting rock bottom for a family to get back on their feet. A mom who took advantage of the controversial Nebraska law that's been used as recently as this week to drop teenagers at designated safe place around the state, has been reunited with her daughter.

Martina Carilo told her story to TV crews last night in Spanish, her 8-year-old daughter interpreting. The little girl said her 14-year-old sister is pregnant and has been running away from home on a regular basis. Frustrated and thinking she had no place else to turn, their mom took the teenager to the Immanuel Hospital last Friday and said goodbye.

It was a shock to the teen girl, who spoke to the news crews too, the camera trained on her hands twisting in her lap. "I thought I was not going to see her anymore," she said. "I was sad being there and not seeing my mom anymore." Carilo quickly felt remorse too, and when she returned to the hospital, they set the family up with a counselor. The Carilos' church has gotten involved to provide support as well. And Martina can get her daughter back on track without having to fight with the courts because of a split second decision made out of desperation that - in the end - hurt no one. Heck, it really and truly helped her family.

It's an unhappy story, but it's got a happy ending, especially compared to the details released by the dad who lost his wife before abandoning nine of his 10 children earlier this week. My heart aches for every single member of each of these families, but I'm wondering why it has to come to essentially "legalizing" abandonment to give a frustrated parent the channel to finally find help.

That old adage "absence makes the heart grow fonder" has a lot of truth to it. Sometimes, kids don't listen. Sometimes, parents need a break. But in most states, getting a break from your child is nearly impossible. Remember Lynette kicking the kids out of the car and driving away on Desperate Housewives? She was gone for only a few seconds, but off Magnolia Lane, her butt would be sitting in a jail cell.

I remember my mom leaving me in an Aeropostale in a busy New Jersey mall one afternoon when we were back-to-school shopping. I was about this girl's age, and I remember we were fighting, as usual, about something stupid. Hello, I was a teenage girl and this was my mother - of course we were fighting! I was probably alone for no more than an hour, and the sheer terror of it made me a very quiet teenage girl on the ride home. And I was a pretty good kid. I didn't run away from home. I wasn't pregnant at 14.

Teenagers are maddening, and their parents aren't always that sympathetic. They sometimes forget what it was like to BE a teenager - no matter how recent it was. But parents who want help often face few options. Health insurance doesn't always cover family counseling. And that's if a family even HAS health insurance. Then there's finding time, a sitter for the other kids, and the list goes on. Then add in a teen pregnancy, a mom who's working to try to make ends meet for her two kids in today's economy . . .

I still think a blanket abandonment law is extreme, but holding parents liable for every twist and turn in the parenting process is ridiculous. Every child is different, and thus every path as a parent must be different. So how do we make it easier for everyone to raise their kids?

Preventing Teen Pregnancy, One Tick at a Time

Dad Dumps Nine Kids Under Nebraska Safe Haven Law

JeanneSager — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:19:00 GMT

Ever consider dropping your kid at the zoo? What if there were nine of them?

The new Nebraska safe haven law allowed a father to walk into the Creighton University Medical Center and drop not one, not two, but NINE children and make a fast getaway. The siblings, aged 1 through 17, automatically became wards of the state, which cannot tough their biological father with any charges of abandonment.

Most states allow parents 72 hours after a child's birth to leave a child at a designated safe place without risk of prosecution. But Nebraska officials couldn't agree on a limit – they approved open-ended legislation that allows parents to drop off a "child." Since July, three kids aged 11 to 15 have been abandoned (not including this family) under the new safe haven law. But never a whole family, and certainly not one this big.

Each abandonment in recent weeks has thrown more egg on the face of wishy washy politicians, but this particular case stands out for the warning it sends to parents who shoot for big families - yes, you love them and yes, they can drive you up the wall. That's because they're supposed to act as very expensive birth control.

My very Catholic grandparents had seven back when they were considered the small family on the block. I'm refusing to walk in my grandmother's very able footsteps because I just can't imagine handling a screaming baby and a college-bound rebel. Imagine buying diapers for one kid and tampons for another, paying nursery school and college tuitions in the same month and nursing your newborn through your oldest's high school graduation?

I'd have to find a big zoo.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Based on comments below, I decided to pull the photo that originally appeared with this story. It was not meant to offend people based on the race/ethnicity of the family pictured - in fact it was simply a photo of parents with nine kids as one comment notes. The reason I'm removing the photo is because some people seem to believe this was a picture of the family described in the article. There was no intention to mislead readers.

Source: Omaha World Herald

Image: The Sun

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Baby abandoned in Queens, husband had ordered Mom to have abortion

Brett Singer — Wed, 14 May 2008 12:30:00 GMT

On May 11, a 3-day-old baby girl was found abandoned on the stoop of a building in Flushing, Queens, along with a bag full of diapers and formula.

A day later, police found the mother, a 31-year-old named Hua Zheng, by using information on the hospital bracelet the baby still wore. (Oops.) They also had surveillance video footage of her leaving the hospital with the baby – on Mother's Day.

Zheng is married, and her husband reportedly told her to get an abortion because they couldn't afford to have a child. Doctors told Zheng she was too far along to have the procedure, so she, "lied to her husband and hid her pregnancy." Presumably Zheng told him she had gotten an abortion, then had the baby and left her outside. How she would be able to hide all of this, I don't know.

There are slightly conflicting reports depending on which source you read. The Daily News says that Zheng and her husband have a 2-year-old boy who had been sent to live in China because they couldn't afford to raise him here. CBS News said that the stoop was chosen at random. But Newsday tells us that Kristina Yu, the woman who found the baby on her doorstep, was the babysitter for Zheng's son. It's possible that she used to babysit the son, and then he went to live in China. In the CBS story, Yu said that she couldn't determine the baby's ethnicity: "It looked like it could be an Asian baby. It looked like it could be a mix. I'm not sure."

Once again, as in the "taxi baby" case, the Safe Haven law rears its head. Since Zheng left the baby on a stoop, she will be charged with a crime. If she had brought the girl to the hospital, she would have been able to walk away, no questions asked.

image: amny.com

Newborn baby found alive by the side of the road

Brett Singer — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 18:00:00 GMT

On Friday afternoon two men in Palmetto, Florida, found a newborn baby by the side of the road, "just East of the Wal-mart," while doing some work on their SUV.

Retired policeman Randy Petroskey and his son Nick at first thought the hours-old boy was "a plastic baby." But upon further examination, they realized that it was a real, live kid. Petroskey's son said, "I was like 'are you sure it's a baby?' He said 'Yes, look, it has flies'." (Yikes. Flies.) The umbilical cord was still attached, and some clothes that officials think belong to the mother were found at the scene. The baby was taken to a local hospital and appears to be healthy.

Florida, like New York, has a Safe Haven Law that allows troubled parents to leave their up to 3 day old infants at a firehouse or hospital, although when you hear stories like this one, one wonders how many new mothers know about it.

image: mysuncoast.com

Taxi Baby Driver Gets Probation

Brett Singer — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 23:00:00 GMT

The livery cab driver who brought a little girl to a firehouse isn't going to do any jail time. Klever Sailema and his girlfriend, Maria Siavichay, each received 6 months probation for conspiring with baby Daniella's father, Carlos Rodas, to bring the little girl to a New York City firehouse.

Rodas still hasn't been found. Since the mother is 14 years old, he will probably face statutory rape charges if he ever does surface. The mom is back at her hometown in Maryland, as is the baby, although it is unclear if the two are together.

Not a fun story, but this seems to be the best solution since there was no malicious intent on the part of the driver and his girlfriend. Hopefully the baby ends up with a loving family, which is the most important thing.

More Taxi Baby News

Brett Singer — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:45:00 GMT

Here's an update on the Taxi Baby story: both baby Daniella and her mother (who is 14) are now in foster care in Maryland, where the mother is originally from. The father, Carlos Rodas, is still at large. Klever Sailema, the livery cab driver who dropped the baby at a firehouse, has been charged with "falsely reporting an incident and criminal facilitation." Maria Siavichay, Rodas' sister and Sailema's girlfriend, received a charge of "criminal facilitation."

Interesting side note: activist Fernando Mateo, the founder the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers, is calling for changes to the Safe Haven Law, which currently allows parents to drop their five day old child off at certain locations without fear of prosecution. Although he condemned the fact that the driver lied about what happened, Mateo would like the law to give parents more time. One change we would suggest: according to Wikipedia and WCBS news, parents will soon be able to drop off unwanted children at 7-11's, which seems like a really bad idea. Hopefully this story will end as well as it possibly can.

Photo: New York Daily News

Baby Left in Taxi

Hero Taxi Driver? Not So Much

Taxi Baby: The Saga Continues

Taxi Baby Update

Brett Singer — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 14:38:00 GMT

The Daily News reports that Carlos Rodas, the father of "Taxi Baby" Daniella, is still at-large, despite an earlier story that said he wanted to turn himself in. Apparently Rodas is concerned that he might be charged with statutory rape, since he is 27 and the little girl's mother is 14.

14??!!??!? As we used to say in the old country, oy vey. This one isn't going away anytime soon, even if they do bring daddy in.

The News also tells us that the Taxi and Limousine Commission

Babble Commenter Marlene wanted to know about adoption info. Here's what we've read: at the moment, Daniella is with a foster family, and I imagine they need to wait and see what happens with the parents. I have to think that she will be put up for adoption, but I don't know what the process is. The mother's family, here and in her home country of Ecuador, have said that they aren't going to take the baby. The good news is that all media outlets report that she's a really happy little girl who everyone seems to adore. Hopefully this story will be resolved quickly.

Photo: New York Daily News

Hero Taxi Driver? Not So Much

Brett Singer — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 19:31:00 GMT

Thanks to commenter BettyWu who pointed out that the "hero cabbie" was anything but, since it turns out the whole story was made up: "Mr. Sailema [the driver] was part of a scheme to help an overburdened father in the Bronx who told his neighbors that the girl’s young mother had disappeared and he could not take care of the girl on his own." It's longish story that I won't try to summarize here, although there's one laughable line from Sailema's attorney, Kevin Faga, who says that the cabbie did the right thing under New York State's Safe Haven Law. That law lets people bring an infant who is in danger to certain places, firehouses included. You can also call a toll-free number run by the AMT Children of Hope Foundation, which the driver may have tried to do, according to a Daily News report. Little detail, though: the child can't be more than 5 days old. Kev the Lawyer needs to do a little googling before talking to the press.

In retrospect, the whole "jumped out to use a pay phone" story was pretty specious, but I guess even cynical New Yorkers (myself included) would prefer to believe the best in a story like this. I hereby revoke the props I gave the driver earlier.