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Neb. parents rush to leave kids before law changes
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| Contributor | particleman |
| Last Edited | particleman Nov 13, 2008 10:13pm |
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| Category | News |
| Media | Website - Yahoo News |
| News Date | Friday, November 14, 2008 04:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | The mother was running out of more than patience when she abandoned her 18-year-old daughter at a hospital over the weekend under Nebraska's safe-haven law. She was also running out of time: She knew that state lawmakers would soon meet in a special session to amend the ill-fated law so that it would apply to newborns only.
"Where am I going to get help if they change the law?" said the mother, who lives in Lincoln and asked to not be identified by name to protect her adopted child.
To the state's surprise and embarrassment, more than half of the 31 children legally abandoned under the safe-haven law since it took effect in mid-July have been teenagers.
But state officials may have inadvertently made things worse with their hesitant response to the problem: The number of drop-offs has almost tripled to about three a week since Gov. Dave Heineman announced on Oct. 29 that lawmakers would rewrite the law.
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All states have safe-haven laws, but in every state but Nebraska, the law applies to infants only. Authier said her group and others had warned senators after the law passed early this year that there could be problems, but the lawmakers did not believe it. "It wasn't like talking to a stone wall," Authier said. "It was just that people who aren't in the business of dealing with families, they aren't aware how desperate some of these families are."
Sure enough, 18 teenagers — five 17-year-olds, two 16-year-olds, six 15-year-olds, two 14-year-olds, three 13-year-olds — have been abandoned, along with eight children who were 11 or 12. Five of the children dropped off have been from out of state. |
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