Institute Debunks Donaldson Report on Safe Haven Laws
Counter Report: A Discovery Institute Rebuke of New York City Adoption Institute Report on Safe Havens by William L. Pierce, Ph.D., Senior Fellow, Discovery Institute
¹ Background Arguably, the movement to create new options for women in crisis at risk of unsafely abandoning their babies began in Seattle, Washington, in 1997 when city officials convened a Blue Ribbon task force to suggest new approaches to the problem. The core recommendation was that women be provided anonymity and freedom from being prosecuted for child abandonment if they took their newborns, unharmed, to a designated safe place.
Since 1997, several localities instituted programs and 42 states have passed some sort of law that is meant to create a lifesaving option for babies. Notwithstanding the rapid and unprecedented acceptance by state legislators of this idea, some critics continue to oppose such laws or to seek to change such laws in ways that would eviscerate them.
The most prominent recent action by opponents of these laws was the publication, on March 9, 2003, of a report by a New York City based institute, the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute.
² The Donaldson report, less balanced than a monograph issued in 2003 by the Child Welfare League of America, received widespread attention by the media, essentially claiming that Safe Haven laws are failing.
It seems appropriate, therefore, for a Seattle-based institute to examine the claims made by the New York City-based group. This brief comment is based on a more detailed review, with citations, that will be released shortly.
The Executive Summary of the report from the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, which has received substantial media attention since its release March 9, 2003, levels three different sorts of charges against "Safe Haven" laws. Donaldson claims there are "indications" these new laws lead to unintended consequences, lists four supposed shortcomings and suggests five features that should be in any Safe Haven statute.
Page 1: Background Page 2: Unintended Consequences? Page 3: Missing Elements? Page 4: Minimal Provisions?
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