Illinois, Indiana programs spread awareness on baby surrender options
CARMEL, Ind. - It's an unimaginable decision: giving up a newborn baby.
However, several local programs are looking to spread awareness and give parents choices.
In a FOX 32 Special Report, Tia Ewing examines several success stories and delves into the differences in regulations between Illinois and Indiana for parents facing crisis situations.
"I'm very, very passionate about it because I think there's nothing more important in the world than human life, and especially babies," said Chief John Moriarty of the Carmel, Indiana Fire Department.
Moriarty has been with the department for 42 years and the Safe Haven Baby Box at Station 345 is perhaps the part of his professional career that he is most passionate about.
"This is just what I do and what all the firefighters do throughout the country," said Moriarty. "We save human life, and we're going to do whatever we can to do that."
The box was installed in 2018 after Moriarty and another Carmel fire chief, David Haboush, were approached about the program.
Not only is Carmel's box one of the first to be set up, but it also holds another record.
"They hold the record nationwide for the most babies surrendered in one Safe Haven Baby Box," said Monica Kelsey, founder of Safe Haven Baby Boxes.
Kelsey believes the Carmel fire team's dedication to the children in their care is part of why they've become the busiest.
"We've had four infants," said Haboush. "Even though the box has been here for almost five years, we really had all of our infants surrendered here in the span of about 18 months."
Under the Safe Haven Baby Box law in Indiana, a person looking to surrender a child doesn't have to have face-to-face contact to hand the child off. Instead, they are given the option to place the child in a temperature-controlled box.
"If they want to, they can do it in total anonymity. They can come to the outside of the box. There's no cameras outside of our fire station," said Haboush.
Kelsey says anonymity is key to making sure mothers feel comfortable with the drop-off.
"These women don't have to face anyone, they don't have to talk to anyone. They don't have to feel shamed or judged," said Kelsey. "They can just place their child in these boxes and these babies are picked up within a couple of minutes. And so everybody wins."
Kelsey started the Baby Box program out of inspiration from her beginnings. Her mother left her at a hospital just two hours after she was born.
"Doing the research for when I started Safe Haven Baby Boxes, I started going back, and I started looking at all these babies that were just dumped in our country," said Kelsey.
About every three days in America, a baby is found deceased in our country or found clinging to life.
"Here in Indiana, since she started the Baby Box Program, no baby has been found deceased, and so we know that it's being effective, and it's working," said Moriarty.
Kelsey credits Moriarty as a pivotal supporter of the program. Not only did he facilitate the introduction of the box to Carmel, but he also contributed to enhancing the comprehensiveness of the information booklet associated with the program.
"I had our paramedics and EMTs help me write the program," said Moriarty. "I put together any information I could get on it, besides policies and procedures, and then put it together, and it became a very thick binder."
Moriarty and his wife played a key role in setting up a changing table stocked with baby supplies next to the box to make sure the children placed in the fire department's care had everything from new outfits to a car seat.
"So our idea, my wife and mine, was to make sure that that family had everything they needed to start with," said Moriarty.
Additionally, he creates a baby book for every child in their care, ensuring that their adoptive families have cherished memories of the child's earliest days. Moreover, the Carmel firefighters have initiated a tradition of commemorating each baby's arrival with a special birthday cake.
"They said, as I walked back, ‘Hey, chief, do you want a piece of the baby’s birthday cake?'" said Moriarty. "And, I'm like, ‘What?’ And they go, ‘We made the baby a birthday cake,’ and that about broke my heart."
The Safe Haven Baby Box program currently has operational boxes in 15 states. Several other states, like Wisconsin, have passed a law to approve the program but don't have boxes yet.
"I hope to see a baby box in every state, city and town," said Moriarty. "I hope all 50 states allow these baby boxes to be placed. They're saving human lives. What's more important than that in this country?"
This program helped save the life of a Chicago area baby when it was dropped off at the Schererville Fire Department in November.
However, despite its success, this program is not in Illinois.
"Chicago is one of these cities where they keep saying they don't have a problem. And we keep showing them they do. And they just keep ignoring it," said Kelsey.
Kelsey says there have been a lot of abandonments in Chicago, including one case where a baby boy was found deceased outside a Chicago fire station in 2022.
So, why doesn't Illinois offer this program?
"We've got tons of pushback from Illinois. Tons of pushback," said Kelsey.
Fox 32 Chicago spoke with two state legislators who were interested in bringing this program to Illinois.
In 2021, one of them wrote a bill to try to make that happen but it stalled in the state legislature's rules committee and was removed from their agenda two months ago.
Illinois does have a program where new parents can give up their babies, and it does not involve a box.
"It allows a parent that feels that they cannot keep a newborn baby for whatever reason to be able to walk into a Safe Haven site, which in Illinois is all hospitals, police and fire stations," said Dawn Geras, Chairman of the Board of the Save Abandoned Babies Foundation.
Geras says the benefit of Illinois' law requiring face-to-face contact is it gives the chance for supportive services to be offered.
"We can provide the support for them to make a plan to parent the baby or a traditional adoption," said Geras. "If you give a box to a woman instead, you eliminate that possibility."
Since 2001, the foundation says 159 infants have been dropped off at Illinois Safe Haven sites and that another 92 were illegally abandoned.
While Geras adds that a parent doesn't need to speak with someone when handing over a baby, she feels her program is safer because it allows new moms to receive help with any potential medical complications.
"We're already promising them anonymity, the law has been in effect now for 21 years and it works," said Geras.
Both initiatives emphasize that their primary goal is to save lives and promote awareness.
If you'd like to learn more about either program, you can click on the links below: