New law gives abandoned a chance

A Dumpster is no place for an infant. Yet every year we hear of abandoned children discarded in Dumpsters, alleys and other injurious places. Thankfully, this practice is happening less and less thanks to new safe-haven laws that permit mothers of unwanted newborn infants to abandon their child at safe designated location, such as a hospital, police or fire station, without civil or criminal penalty.

Effective Jan. 1, the Illinois legislature amended the Abandoned Newborn Infant Protection Act to permit mothers to safely abandon infants who are up to 30 days old. The original law defined a newborn infant as any child who "a licensed physician reasonably believes is 72 hours old." In June of 2006, the legislature changed the definition of newborn infant to include "any child ... 7 days old or less."

Now, a newborn infant will be defined to include any child 30 days old or less. According to the Illinois Hospital Association, this law has saved more than 50 infants from "unsafe abandonment." Many of these children would otherwise be abandoned in Dumpsters, on the side of roads, or in alleyways. Since this law's enactment, hospitals fire stations and police departments have developed protocols that help insure the safety of abandoned children.

These protocols include such rules as the posting of signs indicating locations of safe havens and timely disclosure to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services of the existence of an abandoned infant. The broadening of this law to include "older" children and the tightening of protocols will give greater flexibility to distressed mothers and save lives.

Matthew J. Medina

Winfield