10 Years of Hope, Trying to Save Abandoned Newborns. Kristen McQueary

For 10 years, Dawn Geras of Chicago has tracked cases like this one. Ms. Geras is the founder of the Save Abandoned Babies Foundation, a charity she runs out of her home in a downtown high rise. She helped get a state law enacted in 2001, the Abandoned Newborn Infant Protection Act. The law allows parents of babies less than 30 days old to relinquish them, no questions asked, at police stations, fire houses and hospitals.


Since the law was enacted in 2001, 69 Illinois babies have safely been taken to designated sites.   The law is designed to make the process anonymous for the parents and safe for the babies. As long as the infant is unharmed and handed directly to staff members, the parents are not prosecuted.


Despite the new law and successful adoptions, problems persist. Including the Bloomington newborn, 63 babies have been abandoned illegally during the last 10 years, nearly as many as were taken to the safe havens. They were left at churches, along roadways and, in some cases, thrown in garbage cans. Of those, 30 died before someone found them.





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