Yesterday, (Sunday) two more boys were legally abandoned at hospitals. One boy was dumped in Omaha, the other in Lincoln, abandoned by his 51 year-old grandmother who had only recently been granted custody of him.
A day of inaction by legislators can translate directly into a lost family for kids.
The dump law never should have passed in the first place. Now that it has, every day without full repeal is an opportunity for destruction. Destruction of families, of a child’s history, of community ties, the list goes on and on. Those who advocate slapping some duct tape on this law, or somehow think they can retool it merely continue the existing track record of harm. Dump laws are by definition, unfixable. Playing with age ranges for ‘little dumplings’ just changes how soon the victims of these laws will be able to be vocal about what was done to them.
The ongoing harm caused by Nebraska’s particular variation on the legalized child abandonment law is not a case of ‘unforeseen consequences’. Those who actually bothered to read the wording of the law understood it was a recipe for disaster.
Lincoln Nebraska’s Police Chief, Tom Casady is quoted as saying:
“I’m rather surprised that Legislature didn’t see this coming because I can assure you everyone at the Lincoln police department saw it coming.”
The notion that Nebraska legislators ‘didn’t see it coming’ while politically useful, particularly to legislators themselves, at this point appears to be patently false.
According to Sen. Vickie McDonald (a sponsor on the Nebraska dump bill) precisely this possibility, that older kids would be entering into the system under the dump law, was understood to be one possible outcome and was discussed among (at least some) Nebraska legislators. See Teens Dumped at Hospitals Under Safe Haven Law (Originally posted back on Sept. 25th) for the following:
But at least one lawmaker who sponsored the state’s safe haven law knew it could be an issue.
Sen. Vickie McDonald of St. Paul said, “We discussed the possibility of something like this happening, but we did nothing to address it thinking possibly it wouldn’t happen.”
Let’s be clear about this, it was discussed, and legislators “did nothing to address it” (emphasis added.)
Not altogether surprising, considering how some view the Nebraska dump situation as what the law was crafted to do, and thereby a positive outcome.
Easy for a term limited politician to spout off about, they’re not the ones who have to deal with the consequences of these dump laws.
With dumps laws now enacted in all 50 states, we as a nation find ourselves with states actively encouraging the legalized abandonment of children.
Speaking as a former child who (to the best of my knowlege anyway, sealed records being what they are) passed through the child welfare system, and as an adopted adult, I find this state of affairs revolting. It is a societal and legal abandonment of those least able to defend their own interests.
While the fretting continues in comments and columns around the country, real kids are day by day being dumped. They will live with the consequences of such for the rest of their lives. Even if they are eventually reunited with family, undergoing the process of legalized abandonment is not something they’re likely to forget, nor fully forgive anytime soon.
Most of those proposing anything at all be done about this sorry mess are advocating Nebraska’s dump law be brought in line with other baby-dump laws across the country. Which is to say, they don’t want victims of these laws who can go on the evening news and tell people what it feels like to be abandoned. They would rather the laws affect those too young and too voiceless (physically, politically, etc) to defend their own interests.
Baby-Dump laws are about pushing the consequences of such horrendous legislation down to those too young to even begin to fight back. As I mentioned in that earlier post, prior to Nebraska upping the age limit, the oldest of the legalized abandonment kids, from Texas, the first state to pass the then called “Baby Moses Laws”, would today be approximately nine years old. The 18 year lag between being dumped and reaching age of majority is more than enough time for the legislators who created the mess to go on about their lives, the direct consequences of such never touching them.
So by way of updating the Nebraska scope of the problem to date, Bastardette has put together an invaluable timeline/roster/status tally (updated to the below in this, her most recent post):
Here’s the revised dumpee roster:
September 1: Male 14–left by mother at Omaha police station. Currently in foster care.
September 13: Male 11–left by grandmother–another report says mother–at Immanuel Medical Center, Omaha; currently in foster care and partial hospitalization.
September 13: Male 15–left by guardian aunt at Bryant Medical Center West, Lincoln.
September 20: Pregnant female 13 left by mother at Immanuel Medical Center, Omaha. Returned to mother.
September 22: Male 18, turned himself in to hospital in Grand Island; too old for foster care, but can receive services.
September 24: 9 siblings, 1-17 (left by father, Gary Staton, at Creighton University Medical Center ER).
- female, 1
- male, 6
- male, 7
- female, 9
- male, 11
- female 13
- female 14,
- male, 15
- male 17
- An 18-year old sister who does not live at home was not abandoned. All these children are now in foster care and several relatives have requested custody Background checks are underway here and here. Go here and here for video of home and neighbors.
September 24: Male 11–left at Immanuel Medical Center, Omaha.
September 24, Male 15–left by guardian uncle at Immanuel Medical Center, Omaha; uncle plans to relinquish guardianship.
October 5: Male 12–left by guardian grandmother at Brian LGH West, Lincoln
October 5: Male 12–left at Immanuel Medical Center, Omaha
Note that this comes out to 18 kids, not the “16″ the papers are now using based off the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services list of cases to date (link to a PDF). The Sept. 1rst police station dump is not being counted as police stations are not authorized dump sites, none-the-less, for the kid involved it most certainly was an abandonment. The other case not being counted in the ‘official’ list of cases to date is the September 22, 18 year-old male who turned himself in in Grand Island.
Being a Bastard based blog, I base my count on what the kids themselves are experiencing, I’ll note if they are dumped at a non-authorized site, but I feel it’s important to remember those dumped, even if left off the State’s official tally. It was no less a dump for the 14 year-old boy (Sept. 1) just because he was left somewhere other than a site mandated by the Nebraska law, he is no less abandoned by his family, no less in foster care as a result of the dump law than any of the other kids. Ask yourself this, had the Nebraska dump law not passed, would his mother have abandoned him at the police station?
If there’s any one thing my blog tries to do consistently, it’s remember those so often forgotten or hidden in (or out of) the ‘official’ tabulations.
To date, we’re talking about 18 kids who would not have undergone the abandonment process were it not for the reckless and destructive passage of Nebraska’s falsely named “safe haven” law. Legalized abandonments are not “safe havens” for kids, they’re just a new and less paperworked point of entry into an already overburdened child welfare system.
Nebraska, like the other 49 states has gotten into the dreadful business of making it easy for those with custody to rid themselves of kids, and in so doing it fails those kids, disregarding both their longterm needs and ultimately their short term needs as well.
This is just another form of (already) failed social experimentation with the lives and relationships of kids hanging in the balance. The longer dump laws stay on the books, the more kids become part of the legalized abandonment experiment.
In Nebraska with its child-dump law the casualties to date have been kids. In states with baby-dump laws, the casualties are babies. Whether newborn or child, abandonment deprives these people of building blocks necessary to them, particularly later in life. The state should never set out to set up systems that intentionally deprives a subset of citizens of basic things other citizens not only have, but consider the bedrock their lives are based on.
No matter what pretty language child-dump advocates attempt to wrap their toxic legislation in, the bottom line is child abandonment is never good for kids.
Some days I feel like I’m down to stating the obvious.
***
Once again, I end my post by asking for what I really want, an end to legalized abandonment laws. Nothing short of full repeal, in Nebraska and across the nation.
Because there’s no such thing as a ‘good’ legalized abandonment law.
Every abandonment is a failure.
Kids deserve better than abandonment.
***
Finally, I have LOTS more writing about the Nebraska situation I’m trying to get to. That said, the situation is evolving far faster than I could ever blog it.
In the mean time go over and read some important posts on Bastardette. She is doing a tremendous job of writing about the dump laws from her own angle, (I’ve ’starred’ “*” her recent Nebraska related posts):
* NEBRASKA FIASCO CONTINUES: 2 MORE DUMPED AT HOSPITAL (October 6, 2008)
* NEBRASKA FIASCO: BASTARDETTE GETS A SHORT INTERVIEW WITH NCFA’S TOM ATWOOD ON NEBRASKA TEEN DUMPS AND ‘SAFE HAVEN” LAW (October 6, 2008)
CALIFORNIA: THE TERMINATOR TERMINATES “SAFE HAVEN” BABY DUMP EXPANSION AGAIN (October 2, 2008)
“A LITTLE HAYWIRE:” BABY DUMP PUSHER TRIVIALIZES ABANDONERS AND ABANDONMENT (Sept 30, 2008)
* “I DON’T WANT ANYTHING TO HAPPEN TO KIDS LIKE IT HAPPENED TO ME” NEBRASKA ABANDONMENTS REACH 16 (Sept 28, 2008)
* BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME: NEBRASKA DUMP FIASCO (Sept 26, 2008)
WARNING AUSTRALIA: SAFE HAVENS COMNG YOUR WAY? (Sept 24, 2008)
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