KIMBALL — Nebraska officials say a 14-year-old California boy has become the last child reported abandoned under the state's safe-haven law before it was changed to limit such drop-offs to infants no more than 30 days old.
Nebraska officials say the boy from California's Yolo County was driven to Nebraska's Kimball County Hospital on Friday by his mother.
Authorities say the boy has been placed in a foster home while state officials contact the appropriate agencies in California.
That brings to 36 the number of children left at Nebraska hospitals since the state's law went on the books in July.
That law did not specify an age limit for drop-offs, but lawmakers changed the statute Friday and it took effect Saturday.
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On the Net:
DHHS safe-haven: http://tinyurl.com/5h7koz
Those are some sorry a** parents. That law is meant to keep children at risk safenot to drop off because you can't handle them or don't want them anymore. Absolutely ridiculous.
I'm sorry but I honestly cannot believe people are dropping their 17year-olds off in Nebraska! You couldn't stand one more year? Well at least the kid is somewhat safe for the time being. Its very sad.
trink1213, I don't believe lawmakers screwed up the law and left out age limits children can be dropped off? What were they thinking while when writing the law? Did they assume all citizens of Nebraska are rational thinkers and therefore would know the law is only applicable to parents with infants? This is a bad and careless oversight on their behalf. My husband and me raised six children and thank goodness it never reached a point where we wanted to get rid of them. There were times when we probably felt like...as most teenagers know exactly which buttons to push, but not once did we feel like giving them away or giving up on them.
I don't know what they were thinking when they passed this law either! I am hoping that they were thinking about the children and maybe thought that it would be better for them to be dropped off than live in a family where they were not wanted?
It is a very sad state this country is in when people have children for money or because they don't know how to protect themsleves. I feel so bad for those children (including the teenagers!) I would love to be able to take them in and try to fix the damage that their parents have done.
Lawmakers screwed up when writing the initial bill via omitting an age limit that children (unwanted by parents) can be dropped off at the hospital without persecution. This sounds horrible and if these children are packages. Lawmakers should have known beforehand when writing the law that some parents would take advantage of the situation if the law did not include any age limit. Furthermore, couldn't these teenagers be voluntarily placed in the foster care system, because parents would not be charged for negligence or any type of abuse if they utilize this means? This is horrible. How does someone care for a child 15 years or more and suddenly decide they don't want him/her? This has to be damaging to the child in addition to what other mental injuries the child may have suffered with the parent.
At three days old, why not just leave the infant in the hospital rather than leaving him/her at the door of a hospital? After all, on average, a mother does not leave the hospital until three days later after giving birth anyway. I don't understand some women and men. If they don't want any children or a child by the men who impregnated them or the woman he impregnated or because the women don't know who the fathers are, why not protect themselves from becoming pregnant or the man use precautionary measures to avoid a pregnancy, women have their tubes tied or burned, or avoid having sex with individuals they don't want to father or mother their child/children? This response is not applicable to rape victims.
At three days, "you haven't spent all night up with them, you haven't fed them ... everything that goes along with being a new parent hasn't set in yet," Langemeier said after introducing his amendment.
This is the excuse to up the time limit to 30 days. How lame is this? "I mean really I sorry you have to stay up at night to feed your kid. Would you like someone else to go to work for you too?" Throw the idea of demanding some effort from someone. Lets just discard the baby because he is inconvenient.
This is the sign of a loveless nation. If we loved them we would help them by giving them the tools to raise their own children. The next step is to make them all Blonde with Blue Eyes 6 foot tall. You have a kid you love them it is that simple. America needs to wake up. THe three day rule gives mothers who were not intending on keeping the kid or worse the option to give it a life but do not use this as an excuse to enable a generation of lazy parents.
The senators could not agree on an age limit when they originally penned the law. So instead of holding the law up in session, they passed it without an age limit. Their assumption (my mother has a saying about assumptions) was that the law minus an age limit would be better than no safe harbor law at all.
I think this just goes to show how out of touch our white collar elected officials can tend to be. At least they finally spent the tens of thousands of Nebraska tax payers dollars on a special session to get right what they should have put the time into in the first place. My mother also has a saying about, "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right the first time."
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