Going into the Nebraska special session- Repeal! Anything less than full repeal is further failure

Repeal the dump laws now.

Every single day the dump laws remain on the books is another day of failure.

Yes, a special session should be called, but not to age down and ensure the disaster continues, just against younger kids.

The special session should be called to do one thing and do it right, put a stop to legalized child abandonment in Nebraska.

Stop the bleeding. Ensure that no more kids and families are going to put through this ordeal.

Then after the door is shut, begin to tackle the root problems.

It’s time to decouple “getting help” from loss of family and custody.

One can absolutely support providing help to families in crisis while SIMULTANEOUSLY opposing dump laws.

In fact, such is the more humane position, as the “cost” of getting help must not be a kid’s family and world. No kid should ever have to endure such. Whether a kid can remember being dumped personally, or “merely” has to live with the consequences of being dumped as a baby for the rest of their lives, enduring abandonment is never good for kids.

There are now 41 kids who have undergone permutations of the Nebraska dump law child welfare fiasco. There may be more still by the time the special session finally concludes, (and who knows whether a change in the law will even come at the conclusion of such.) But while legislators should be ashamed of the crass and often arbitrary way they played with these kids lives, the problems these families face are more pressing than any blame game.

Those kids and those families are going to need real solutions. Not blather, not outsourcing to “faith-based” quackery, not empty promises, and most of all, not endless referrals around in circles to “help” that never seems to exist in practice. Concrete solutions.

Nebraska politicians made this particular legislative mess, now they owe it to the victims of such to enable genuine access to what they need.

Separately, both in Nebraska and nationally, real lasting solutions for kids and families both approaching and in crisis are going to have to be crafted. Preventative care. Spaces where parents and guardians can take a “time out” without fear of losing their custodial rights. Access to genuine mental health services (which yes, means tackling the health care crisis in America.) Etc.

These families live at the intersection of many systemic problems. The child dumps are but symptoms of deep long neglected systemic problems. The kids are left paying the price.

Dump laws are no solution.

They only create further problems that last lifetimes.

Nothing less than full repeal.