Surrendered Baby Law fails because of poor publicity
By LILIANA GARCIA
A woman has 72 hours to surrender her newborn child to a hospital without
consequences. That’s three days. So why are women disposing of their
newborns like garbage?
Perhaps they are unaware of California’s Safely Surren-dered Baby
Law. Passed in 2001,the bill provided the initial funding for this new
law. Counties are expected to provide the information to their cities.
It seems that Los Angeles County has spent the most time letting the public
know about the Safely Surrendered Baby Law.
Since the campaign began for Los Angeles County in 2002, there has been
a decline in dead babies found from eight to three.
This number may not seem very high, but every baby counts. It is unimaginable
that a woman can leave her baby to die.
On June 17, 2004 a 17-year-old girl left her newborn baby girl in a portable
toilet, in human waste.
In San Jose a week earlier, a woman abandoned her child outside a bar.
Both women told authorities they were unaware of the Safely Surrendered
Baby Law.
The more I read and inform myself about this law, the more I learn that
ignorance, once again, is the cause of too many deaths.
It angers me that mothers leave their defenseless, innocent children to
die.
What angers me most is that it is not common knowledge. Women need to
know.
In Fresno and Kings County, I have never seen this law in advertisements.
I am only aware of this law because I have read articles about it in magazines.
Hospitals are aware of the law, but if the general public is not aware,
then the law is virtually useless.
In 2003, a woman threw her newborn baby girl in a trashcan in the Ashmark
Arms apartments here in Fresno. Perhaps she didn’t know, either.
The little girl didn’t have a chance; she was dead by the time someone
found her.
I searched many times online for information on the Safely Surrendered
Baby Law in Fresno and there was not much information available.
Hospitals have the pamphlets, but they aren’t any good if people
don’t visit the hospitals.
Last week, a baby boy, only a few hours old, was left outside a house.
The baby was wrapped in a bloody blanket.
The baby was blue from the cold.
I am left to wonder if the parents of the baby knew about the law. Either
way, their actions were awful.
There are many ways this situation could have played out. A dog could
have attacked the baby or he could have frozen to death.
Perhaps the owners of the home might not have found the baby until it
was too late.
Beyond just being heartless, parents who kill or abandon their baby are
also putting themselves at risk of being charged with infanticide.
I don’t want to pay tax dollars for this person to be put behind
bars when they can avoid condemning themselves.
Most importantly, babies can be saved. Let’s hope that it doesn’t
take more abandoned babies in order to make this law common knowledge.
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