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DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The state Department of Human Services says someone left a baby at an Iowa medical center under Iowa's safe haven law.
The agency announced Wednesday that someone brought the boy to a medical center Aug. 13 and asked that he be declared a safe haven baby. State law allows parents or their authorized representatives to leave a baby who is 14 days or younger at a health care facility and remain anonymous.
The state withholds details about such infants. A court will terminate parental rights within a month.
This is the 20th time the law has been used since its passage following a case in 2001, when a teen mother in eastern Iowa killed her home-delivered infant.
In all the previous cases, the babies have been adopted.
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