Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: Acting to save newborns

Friday, Feb. 18, 2000 | 9:17 a.m.

Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.

DESPITE THE promotion of physician-assisted suicide and late-term abortions there is a growing concern among Americans about the fate of unwanted babies. There's even a number of people who are stepping in to provide a decent burial for those tiny tots who die after being stuffed, still breathing, in a garbage bin. The several rows of tiny crosses in a California cemetery attest to the love of all children shown by one concerned mother who names them and gives them proper burials.

The states of Texas, Minnesota and Alabama have promoted programs that eliminate the threat of prosecution for anyone leaving an unharmed infant with an emergency medical service. Although it's difficult to get accurate statistics on the number of abandoned newborn infants in public places, a survey of media accounts reveal that nationally the number jumped from 65 in 1991 to 105 or 108 in 1998. At the same time in 1998, 31,000 babies were left in hospitals.

Last month I expressed my disgust with the possible prosecution of parents Richard and Dawn Kelso, who took their 10-year-old son, Steven, to an emergency room and left him after caring for him since birth. It was an act of desperation by parents who had given their all caring for a son suffering from cerebral palsy. They needed some breathing room and some help, which wasn't forthcoming. They didn't put him away in an institution nor did they snuff out his life. They, and Steven, needed help and so do some newborn infants and their mothers.

Edith Stanley, writing in the Los Angeles Times, tells readers:

"In Texas, where 13 babies were abandoned in 10 months last year, a state law was passed in September that removes all threat of prosecution for anyone who leaves an unharmed baby with an emergency medical service. Bills introduced recently in the California Legislature by Sen. Jim Brulte (R-Rancho Cucamonga) and Assemblyman Ken Maddox (R-Garden Grove) would allow mothers with unwanted babies 30 days old or younger to leave them at county hospital emergency rooms, police or fire stations or child protective agencies with no threat of prosecution. And near St. Paul, Minn., three county hospitals have started similar programs."

So there's help on the way in some parts of our country but even that help has some flaws. Debbe Magnusen, founder and director of Project Cuddle in Costa Mesa, Calif., expresses some concerns about the Texas law, which she believes has too many loopholes. In USA Today she praises the media for bringing the infant abandonment problem to the attention of the public but points to some shortcomings in the Texas law:

Magnusen's Project Cuddle has rescued 190 babies from abandonment and possible death. She stresses her desire that neither the baby nor mother is abandoned. She believes the Texas law may encourage abandonment because it relieves responsibility from the parent.

So there may be some differences of opinion about what approach should be used to give the newborn an opportunity to live. What is encouraging is the widening recognition of the problem and the good Americans willing to help solve one of our saddest social problems.

The death of a baby is so sad because we know not the eventual potential of him or her. Every baby deserves the opportunity to at least have a fighting chance to live and become part of the society into which he or she was born. Those who die deserve to have a name and be buried with dignity. They aren't garbage and they don't belong in garbage bins or toilet stalls.