Safe Haven Act Of the four million infants born into the world each year, more than two hundred are killed from infanticide (Flavin, 2009). Many more were discarded by unloving parents but never accounted for. Leaders of the United States took this problem into their own hands to try and combat the abandonment of children. This was done by passing the Safe Haven Act, also known as, the Infant Abandonment Act or Safe Surrender Laws. Due to no reduction in the number of deceased infants found each year and undesirable side effects, one would conclude that the Safe Haven Act needs to be abolished. Economic and social status of new parents are two of the most common reasons a couple would revert to child abandonment (Hammond, 2010). In an effort …show more content…
to drown out this thought, the Safe Surrender Laws were put in place in 1999 when Texas became the first state to fight against child abandonment (Robinson, 2003). Soon after, many states were following Texas’ lead and creating laws for themselves. By 2006, 46 states had passed Safe Haven Laws. Although, the laws vary from state to state, the majority explain, if a mother or father does not feel they are capable of raising the child, they may bring it to a safe haven with, “No Shame, No Blame, No Names” as it was stated by Sanger (2006, p.755.). The safe haven drop zones include; hospitals, fire stations, police stations, and churches. As helpful as these laws may sound, they have had virtually no positive impacts on the problem they are contending. Infanticide is the intentional killing of a newborn child by its elders.
The sole purpose of the Infant Abandonment Act was created. But rather than decrease the number of infanticides in the U.S. like supporters suggested, the act has merely slowed down the amount of infanticide committed by citizens of the United States. The reason for this being, in its short 16-year career, the Safe Surrender Laws have received little to no funding, allowing no advertising or publicity of the new law and benefits it could bring. This is shown in Buckley’s article which describes how six children were killed and discarded by parents in New York which is double the amount killed in the previous year’s entirety (Buckley, 2001). Without funding the word cannot be spread to regretful mothers and fathers about the solution to their problem. A survey was done to see how well the word has gotten around about safe havens. The survey was taken at a hospital asking residents to describe or identify what a safe haven is or how the Safe Haven Act protects them. The results were very poor, displaying that only 29 percent of residents had even heard of a safe haven and only 7 percent could describe one. Therefore, there is no reason for supporters to be praising this act when it has not accomplished anything thus …show more content…
far. One prime example of the lack of publicity of the law is the story of 19-year-old Jamie Marie Smith. One December night in 2001, Jamie’s night began by giving birth to a child on the floor of her trailer accompanied by only her 2-year-old son (Bernstein, 2001). Sixth months prior to her child’s birth, Safe Haven Laws had been passed in her home state of Indiana. Of course Ms. Smith had no knowledge of this because of the lack of advertisement and she thought of the only other option, she abandoned the child. Fortunately, this child was found before it was too late. This is just one of the many examples in which parents reverted to the extreme because of feeling trapped, and having no other option. With the intentions of the law out of reach, numerous undesired results have arisen. Many believe that the law suggests that abandoning a child is an accepted action by society (Robinson, 2003). With the law as stated, parents may think of it as a problem solver that can be used repeatedly. If viewed this way, parents will continue to live and commit the same mistakes without hesitation. If the mistake of producing another child is made and the parents of the newborn feel incapable of providing for baby, they can repeatedly drop the child off a safe haven. This could lead to overcrowded foster care facilities and result in no room for more children. Ultimately, this law is going to cause more problems than one can imagine. Robinson also elaborates on the fact that only one parent needs to be present to drop the child off at a safe haven. In turn, this would completely cut all ties with the other parent and the child (Robinson, 2003). One parent may regret the fact they have a child, but the other may embrace this. If the regretful parent turns the child into a safe haven anonymously as the law says, all relations with both parents and the child are eliminated. There is yet another problem that arises with this action. Since both parents do not necessarily need to be present to drop the child off, there is no way to put the child up for adoption in the future. The reason being, permission was not granted by both parents and no contact information is available to reach the other parent. For these reasons the Safe Haven Act has new problems surfacing every year along with a growing crowd that opposes it. In most cases, children dropped off at safe havens have a rough life ahead of them.
With the countless problems they encounter later in life, it is evident that lawmakers did not consider the future of these children. With continued research, it has been proven that abandoned children face many hardships such as, anxiety, self-esteem issues and attachment problems (Brannagan, 2013). Brannagan explains children will have a hard time fitting in with social norms, because they are unable to make relationships as well as a normal child. This is all due to the fact of abandonment faced by the children at such a young stage in life. The children develop serious trust issues with all people; the main reason it is so hard to interact with others. Trust problems are not the sole hardship these children face due to abandonment. The self-esteem issues children face are overwhelming as it is explained by Brannagan. They believe they have virtually no self-worth making it difficult to get up each morning to go about their day. The solution to decreasing emotionally disabled children is to eliminate the Safe Surrender
Laws. It is believed with a sudden outburst of infanticide cases in Texas in 1999, was the main reason for the new jurisdiction of the Safe Haven Act. Politicians, supporters, and protestors alike, agree that the law was brought on and passed too rapidly (Bernstein, 2001, p.1). Society wanted a solution and the government answered, but it may not have been a smart decision to pass the law so quickly. Bernstein states that the law was based on data that the law makers were quite skeptical about, however, wanting to be proactive, lawmakers bypassed discussion and put the law in affect immediately (Bernstein, 2001). If lawmakers would have slowed down, done research, and addressed the problem correctly, the laws may have had more of an impact on society. “No Shame, No Blame, No Names” is the way that supporters advertise the Safe Haven Act, but a neutral party would know that the slogan is as not as clear cut as it seems (Sanger,2006, p.755). The Infant Abandonment Act has a few undisclosed statements that are listed in the fine print. Sanger explains this when she writes, “In some states if a guardian is caught or identified by the authority, dropping a child of at a safe haven is considered a crime” (Sanger, 2006, 756). A mother who already does not want a child, will not do the right thing knowing there is a chance she will be arrested. Also, the guardians do not want to be labeled as “the parents who dropped their child off at a safe haven” if they do get caught. The consequences and risks of being caught are simply enough to turn parents away from using safe havens and committing the unthinkable. Stiller argues that some good has come from the Safe Haven Laws in her article. Stiller states, since 1999 almost 3,000 newborns have been disposed of at safe havens (Stiller, 2015). To some, this may seem like a immense achievement for the newly acquired law. This statistic is not as promising as it sounds, considering that equals around 200 children a year dropped off safely at a safe haven. As stated earlier by Flavin, of the four million children born each year, about 200 are killed from infanticide (Flavin, 2009). Although it may have seemed like the laws were combating infanticide, the same amount of children saved by the laws are also killed by infanticide each year. Along with a less than impressive rate of safe disposals at safe havens, the previously referred to problem of crammed foster care facilities comes back into the picture. Two hundred children will need to be provided for until they are adopted, if both parents agreed upon the seizure of the child. It is evident that the Infant Abandonment Act has saved numerous lives, but the stats are not as encouraging as supporters hoped. This reassures that the expulsion of the Safe Haven Act will rid future problems and benefit society as a whole. Although supporters of the Safe Haven Act have convinced themselves that the act is helping society, not one person should be convinced in the future. These laws provoke young adults to make poor decisions due to having a back up plan. These laws prevent parents from making the right decision to avoid humiliation and imprisonment. The laws allow a child to be taken away from a parent never to be seen again. The problems regarding the Safe Haven Act, Infant Abandonment Act, and Safe Surrender Laws immensely outweigh the positive gains it has brought to the United States and therefore should be suppressed.
Many states have enacted or are actively considering new "safe-haven" laws to prevent such tragic abandonments. These laws allow a woman to leave her baby at a hospital, medical clinic, police or fire station anonymously, mostly with no...
Despite attempts in the foster care system agencies under the guidelines of the “Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997” (ASFA) to locate suitable homes and families for foster children, many remain in foster care. “Too often, Child Welfare policy and the agencies responsible for it – offices that respond to child abuse and neglect, oversee foster care placements, and seek to reunite children with their parents to find adoptive families- are out of sight and out of mind except for fleeting moments of tragedy, such as a child’s death”.
Many children across the country are wrongfully removed from their homes everyday by workers with an anti-family mindset, who use removal as a first resort not a last. It is not only detrimental to the child’s well-being, but is also immorally abusive to the child. The goal of the child welfare system is to promte safety, permanency, and wellness among all children.
The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) was as a response to growing concerns about “foster care drift”; that is, children experiencing multiple, unstable foster care placements over extended periods, children virtually lost within the child welfare system (Rockhill, 2007). The ASFA has become a very important and much needed policy that helped with placement and safet...
...e open to all women at any point of pregnancy, and that the woman reserves the right as a fully conscious member of the moral community to choose to carry the child or not. She argues that fetuses are not persons or members of the moral community because they don’t fulfill the five qualities of personhood she has fashioned. Warren’s arguments are valid, mostly sound, and cover just about all aspects of the overall topic. However much she was inconsistent on the topic of infanticide, her overall writing was well done and consistent. Warren rejects emotional appeal in a very Vulcan like manner; devout to reason and logic and in doing so has created a well-written paper based solely on this rational mindset.
In 1990, seventy-one percent of sixty-four million American children lived in a two parent household. Fifty-eight percent lived with their biological parents. Since the 1970s, there has been a huge increase in the amount of children living with single or divorced mothers. This only is right considering the increase in single women having children, although not all of those women don’t have a significant other. Currently 7.3 percent of children live with an unmarried parent, 9.1 percent live with a divorced parent and 7.4 percent live with a separated or widowed parent. Every year since the 1970s, over one million children have been affected by divorce (Shino and Quinn). Nowadays every where you look, someone has divorced parents. It could be your own parents, your best friend’s parents, your classmate’s parents or even your teacher. In 1988, fifteen percent of children lived with a separated or divorced parent, while 7.3 million more children lived with a stepparent. It is estimated that almost half of the babies born today will spend a portion of their life living in a one-parent family (Shino and
Their hearts sank as they watched the child they had come to know and love as their own, be taken away by strangers that they had never met until today. As the CPS worker spoke with Mary she explained, “If you had just logged in her injuries acquired during the accident and told us what medicines you had used, this would not have happened.” Mary thought to herself “it was just a scrape… just a tiny little cut…” Many parents all over the world have gone through hardships like this one. If they even got to adopt at all. Many of the rules, regulations and prices agencies have come up with have been causing people all over the world to deter from adopting.
Divorce is becoming a worldwide phenomenon, significantly affecting children’s well-being. It radically changes their future, causing detrimental effects. According to (Julio Cáceres-Delpiano and Eugenio Giolito, 2008) nearly 50% of marriages end with divorce. 90% of children who lived in the USA in the 1960s stayed with their own biological parents, whereas today it makes up only 40% (Hetherington, E. Mavis, and Margaret Stanley-Hagan, 1999). Such an unfavorable problem has been increasing, because in 1969, the California State Legislature changed the divorce laws, where spouses could leave without providing cause (Child Study Center, 2001).
Through all of the hurdles, the government still tries to provide some assistance and keep this issue in the forefront so others can pitch in to help. The protection and care of kids should initially come from the parents, however as other demons are battled it prevents children from experiencing the love, care, and concern of a family. Until funding, assistance for parents, assistance for kids who have aged out, and foster care programs can be corrected, the government will be aiding in detrimental child outcomes. Family may represent the love and security in a child’s life, but it can also be a prison in which physically, emotionally, and sexually kids may feel punished (Causes and Effects). The government protection can only go as far as the law allows.
The US government has an act on killing an unborn child. This act states that;
Attachment theory is the idea that a child needs to form a close relationship with at least one primary caregiver. The theory proved that attachment is necessary to ensure successful social and emotional development in an infant. It is critical for this to occur in the child’s early infant years. However, failed to prove that this nurturing can only be given by a mother (Birns, 1999, p. 13). Many aspects of this theory grew out of psychoanalyst, John Bowlby’s research. There are several other factors that needed to be taken into account before the social worker reached a conclusion; such as issues surrounding poverty, social class and temperament. These factors, as well as an explanation of insecure attachment will be further explored in this paper.
The sympathy of the government for mothers such as Khaila, trying to recover their parental rights has worn thin. Child abandonment is a serious offense and the children that suffer from such neglect face many psychological problems; if they are ever able to survive their circumstances. The abandonment and neglect of a child can result in serious criminal charges. One striking example is the case of seven month old Daniel Scott (Should We Take Away Their Kids?). Baby Daniel had been left for hours unattended and died of in a pool of his own blood. His mother, a crack addict left him in the care of his father to go on a six day crack binge. His father in turn, left him in his crib leaving the door of their Bronx tenement unlocked for any danger to afflict his unprotected son (Should We Take Away Their Kids?). The parents were later charged with manslaughter by negligence.
Erikson believes that during this stage, children will seek approval from others by displaying skills that are valued by others. Additionally, he believes that if this initiative continues, the child will develop confidence in their ability to achieve their goals. During the first few stages of both theories, we see challenges in the development of the child and we also see challenges that a child might face during some, if not all, forms of attachment theory. For example, a parent ignoring the child and speaking to them in a negative manner during insecure-avoidant attachment can be challenging for a child and lead to insecurities and the feeling of not being loved and/or wanted.
Abortion in the United States is a legal form of murder. Each and every year over a million babies are murdered and it must be stopped now before it will continue to get out of hand each and every day. We have discussed in this essay that a fetus is a living humans and not something that can just be thrown away. An unborn child is still a child and he or she needs an opportunity to grow and live a long successful life just like the rest of us have gotten the privilege to do. Abortion cannot go on any longer. More and more live are lost every day.
Abandonment, the action or fact of abandoning or being abandoned, is an issue not only shown in Jennifer Clément’s “Prayer of the Stolen” but that is also prevalent in today’s society. Although abandonment comes in many forms, abandonment of the family, and daughters specifically will be the main focus in this research paper. Child Abandonment in specific is also known today as a form of neglect and is classified as a parent leaving a child for a lengthy period of time, without providing any type of financial support or clear intentions to return to the child’s life. This neglect has a number of negative short term as well as long-term effects on families, and children specifically.