Florida Safe Haven Law: No one Ever Has to Abandon a Newborn Again

By Robert S Weinroth

The heartbreaking headline of an abandoned newborn found in a dumpster west of Boca Raton is difficult to reconcile.

Florida, like all 50 states and Washington DC, enacted a “safe haven” law to offer mothers who are unable or unwilling to care for their baby a legal, no questions asked option.

While the provisions of Safe Haven laws differ by jurisdiction, in Florida, a newborn up to 7 days old need only be taken to a safe haven location. The law provides that a distressed parent who leaves a newborn with a firefighter, emergency medical technician or paramedic at a fire station or emergency services station or brings a newborn infant to an emergency room of a hospital and expresses an intent to leave the newborn and not return has the absolute right to remain anonymous and to leave at any time and may not be pursued or followed unless they later seek to reclaim the child.

No criminal investigation will be initiated solely because the newborn is left at the safe haven location unless there is actual or suspected child abuse or neglect.

Women taking advantage of Safe Haven laws should be applauded, not condemned. Rather than leaving their newborns to die, mothers can offer their babies a second chance even though it likely means making what is most difficult choice they will ever have to make.

Florida’s Safe Haven law is a way for scared, desperate mothers to choose life for themselves, and their newborns without criminal repercussions.