HOUSTON – Since the start of June this year, at least six newborns have been found abandoned, including the bodies of two infants, in the Houston area.
Many are questioning if there is a link between Texas abortion ban and the recent upticks in infant abandonments.
According to a study, the state abortion ban was linked to the increase of infant and neonatal mortality. The study was based on 94,720 recorded infant deaths in Texas and 28 comparison states.
Just this month in August, two newborns in the Houston area were found dead—just days apart.
Since those deaths, KPRC 2 senior digital producer Brittany Taylor sat down with Texas Republican Rep. Geanie Morrison of Victoria, the legislator behind the Baby Moses Law, also known as the Safe Haven Law, which was enacted in 1999. Dr. John Richardson, a pediatrician in Fort Worth, Texas who volunteered his time at an adoption center pushed for the law. Richardson noticed an increase of babies being left and there were no resolutions to help people or alternatives to keep their babies and put them up for adoption.
The city of Houston had a problem with infant abandonments for several months before the law was proposed.
“Gov. George W. Bush signed it into law, in 1999 and immediately, we started receiving calls,” Rep. Morrison said. “We did not know at the time that Texas was the very first state ever have an act as legislation, and we started receiving calls from other states and worked on it for several years. And now, all 50 states have some sort of, Baby Moses legislation.”
The law ensures that parents struggling with the responsibility of caring for a newborn can make a safe and legal choice to entrust their infants to designated safe places without fear of repercussion or questioning. It’s legal for parents to confidentially bring their baby—at least 60 days old or younger—to approved locations, including hospitals, fire stations, free-standing emergency centers, or emergency medical services (EMS) stations.
Morrison clarified that not every facility or fire station is eligible under the law, and that they must be a 24/7 facility to be eligible as a safe haven for parents and babies under the Baby Moses Law. All eligible facilities will have a safe haven sign on its doors.
“It’s not legal if the place is not eligible, and those are the requirements,” Morrison said. “The sign needs to be on the building. A lot of the hospitals have them, like, on the door, coming into an emergency room, and it may be stenciled. And we had the funds to distribute signs for 10 years, and so, we distribute and send them. We do not have the funding anymore, but anyone that calls us, we have a place in Austin that has done the signs for all these years, and we send them there and then, they can have them made and then shipped to them and put on their building.”
When a newborn is dropped off at a hospital that has an emergency room 24 hours a day, it is eligible to take the child, and no questions are asked. Some locations may ask if the parent would like to leave some medical information ontheir family’s medical history, but it is not required, as long as the baby is healthy.
“As long as the child is healthy and not in any harm, the mother can relinquish her child and it will go to Child Protective Services and look for an adoption foster home, then to be, then to also, have a new life and a new home to be adopted,” Morrison said. “Sometimes the mother has delivered herself and she has medical needs. And so that’s also an issue. The EMTs can check her and say, ‘Is there anything you need?’ And she does not have to she does not have to comply. But there is that option because a lot of times, you know, there will be a mother that just had their baby on their own and they do need medical attention.”
Watch the full interview in the video player above.