Monday Teeny Poll
By Glinda
Last week’s poll about how you liked school came out pretty even across the board. The lowest vote getter was “I hated every second of every minute” and the highest vote went to “a lot depended upon the teacher.” So true, so true. Even subjects that you love can be ruined by the droning voice of someone who is just counting the months until retirement.
This week, our poll comes to you courtesy of the state of Nebraska. Recently, their legislature voted to enact a safe haven law, where children can be left by their parents with no repercussions. Except unlike all other safe haven laws across the country that allow only infants, there’s a big twist.
August 25th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Does this mean that the child also has the option to run away, if the home life is unbearable?
August 25th, 2008 at 11:37 am
Does the law include complete termination of parental rights if a child is abandoned, making adoption possible? Or is the poor kid thrown into the foster care cycle, with the potential of being reclaimed by the parents later?
I’m not criticizing foster parents, but the foster care system, which will bounce kids from family to family for years without terminating parental rights and enabling adoption, which is unfair to the kids and often to the foster families.
August 25th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
I’ve always been in favor of safe haven laws that protect infants from being dumped in trash cans and such, but UP TO 19?! That’s insane!
August 25th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
As someone who has seen some of the problems, it would be so much better to leave the child in what is more likely a safe place (I know there are some issues with foster and government care!) than to have the child stay in a sexually or physically abusive situation. No child should have to starve to death lying in their own urine and feces. No child should have to be a sexual slave. No child should have to fear deadly physical beatings or torture from their parent. Giving the parent a way out in a momentary rational phase would save so many innocents from long term emotional/mental damage and/or death. I will say that any parent that voluntarily leaves a child should lose all parental rights and allow the child to be adopted into a loving home. Maybe if the parent knows it’s an option, some of the hopelessness and/or rage would die and more children could be saved.
August 25th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
I find it a bit alarming that (as the article makes it seem) anyone, not just the parents, can drop off a kid at the Safe Haven sites. What if your mom disagreed with your lifestyle? What if the sitter had a grudge against the parent?
Also, as Marvel points out, do these abandoned children get a fair shot at a new home? One of the major factors that keep many families from adopting in the US is the fear that one day the birth parents will show up and try to take back their children. I think if I adopted a child and then had him or her taken away from me, the grief would almost kill me.