Estimated read time: 7-8 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Aug. 9--When Anjel grows up, she will learn that she weighed 4 pounds, 15 ounces at birth, her first word was "dada" and she would suck two fingers on her left hand to fall asleep.
What her adoptive parents can't tell her is the name of her biological mother and why the young woman gave up her newborn at a Chicago police station on Father's Day 2003.
The idea of providing a safe and legal way for parents to abandon babies has swept the nation, with 47 states enacting safe-haven laws since 1999. But in the years since then, debate has intensified: Is legal abandonment effective or just well-intentioned?
Advocates celebrate every infant safely recovered as an alternative to babies left to die in toilets, trash cans and alleys. However, some experts say the laws encourage women to abandon babies rather than go through the adoption process. As a result, there isn't even rudimentary information about the biological parents.
Since Illinois' Abandoned Newborn Infant Protection Act took effect on Aug. 17, 2001, almost as many babies have died after being illegally dumped as have been brought to a safe haven--defined under the law as a hospital or a police or fire station.
Twenty-seven babies have been taken to a safe haven, and 42 have been illegally dumped--21 of those died. Similar data were not kept for the years preceding the law's passage, making comparisons impossible, according to the non-profit Save Abandoned Babies Foundation.
A lack of research and poor record-keeping nationwide make it difficult to evaluate whether the laws are saving lives. Many cases are lost within broader categories of infant neglect, death or homicide.
Despite the unknowns, Dawn Geras believes the law is working.
"In my head I know we'll never save all of them, but in my heart I will try," said Geras, of Chicago, who started the foundation that promotes the law.
She cites 2006 statistics that show that as of Aug. 1, seven babies were turned in legally in Illinois and one was illegally abandoned. During the same seven-month period in 2005, six babies were legally relinquished and eight were illegally abandoned, four of whom died.
Geras acknowledges shortcomings in the law and has worked to improve it, pushing legislation that took effect last month that requires public schools to teach about safe-haven rules as part of sex education. Another new law allows a parent to legally abandon an infant up to seven days after its birth, up from three.
Geras said the main obstacle to making the law more effective is the lack of public funding for community awareness.
"We try to do anything we can as far as spreading the word," said Tracy, who with her husband, John, adopted the first legally relinquished baby, Matthew. Like other adoptive couples, they asked that their last names not be used.
The family lives three hours west of Chicago but travels to the city to help Geras at news conferences.
"It has saved children," Tracy said.
Safe-haven laws began gaining popularity after a spate of horrific infant deaths, from a New Jersey teen who left her baby to die in a bathroom during senior prom in 1997 to the closer-to-home case of Kelli Moye.
In February 1996, Moye, then 15, left her newborn daughter outside a neighbor's house in Poplar Grove. The infant, wearing only a light one-piece outfit and a blanket, froze to death.
Moye, convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2000, has served her prison term and could not be reached for an interview. Her defense lawyer, Debra Schafer, said Moye panicked because she did not want her parents to learn of her pregnancy.
Schafer said she supports the safe-haven law but is not sure if Moye would have taken advantage of it.
"If you're young and immature, you don't always think of all the options," Schafer said. "She just thought the neighbors would come home and find her and everything would be fine. Unfortunately, they didn't use the back door much."
Some experts say that in most cases in which a baby is left in a toilet or alley, the mothers are in no position to think about legal options. Researchers who have examined infant homicide and abandonment disagree on whether any amount of public education would reach those mothers.
"Women who commit neonaticide are psychotic, suffering from postpartum psychosis, in extreme denial or have extreme pressure on them from parents or boyfriends," said Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, a policy research group based in New York.
"The women who would have put their kids in a Dumpster are still doing it," Pertman said.
Marcia E. Herman-Giddens,an adjunct professor at the University of North Carolina's School of Public Health, said her research into infant abandonment led her to conclude that social ills such as poverty, abuse and incest are often behind newborn homicides.
"I'm in no way opposed to [the law], but it's very naive to think it will solve the problem," she said.
But Melissa Breger, clinical professor at Albany Law School of Union University in New York, supports safe-haven laws as one element of a broader child-welfare system.
"Certainly it is not an absolute solution to a major crisis, but it is trying to address one aspect of it," Breger said.
Like many other states, Illinois hasn't budgeted any money to promote the law.
One exception is New Jersey, which, since enacting a safe-haven law in 2000, has allocated at least $500,000 annually to train workers and pay for TV, radio and print ads. Since the law took effect, 26 babies have been legally surrendered and 22 abandoned illegally, said Andy Williams, spokesman for the New Jersey Department of Children and Families.
The challenge in Illinois, New Jersey and elsewhere is reaching a hard-to-define audience.
Since October 2003, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services has produced and distributed more than 760,000 brochures and 5,250 posters in English, Spanish and Polish, spokesman Kendall Marlowe said.
The speed by which Illinois' law transfers parenthood after an abandonment is both praised and criticized.
Under the law, birth parents have at least 60 days to change their minds and seek to have the baby returned to them.
Baby Zoe entered the lives of Tanya and her husband, Eduardo, in August 2005. The northwest suburban couple were foster parents who had adopted five of their eight children.
Because DCFS had pre-qualified them, the couple were able to pick up Zoe within 10 hours after receiving a call. After the biological parents' rights were terminated, Tanya and Eduardo completed the adoption process within months.
By contrast, biological parents who give up a child in adoption court receive counseling and often can continue a relationship with the child, said Bruce Boyer, director of the Civitas ChildLaw Clinic at Loyola University Chicago.
"What are the negative consequences of bringing a child into the process of adoption without that connection to a parent?" said Boyer, who represents children in adoption court. "I would like moms to leave information, at least about the father."
Sheryl Reed agrees. She was devastated when, at 25, she learned that she had been abandoned as a baby outside a Waukegan hospital.
"At that point I knew more than likely I would not be able to find my mother," said Reed, 39, of Sandwich.
Reed supports the state's safe-haven law, although she would prefer that the birth parent be required to leave a medical and ethnic history.
Reed is haunted by an uncertainty that prompted her to help start a Web site for others abandoned at birth.
"Each day, at least for me, you look into the faces of the people you meet. Looking for a clue, a facial feature, the eyes, nose, smile," Reed said. "Does he or she look like me? You don't even think about it, it just happens."
lblack@tribune.com
-----
Copyright (c) 2006, Chicago Tribune
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
