Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: Saving newborn babies

Friday, Feb. 23, 2001 | 9:25 a.m.

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

IT'S REFRESHING TO SEE the Junior League of Las Vegas and Sen. Ray Rawson pushing for a law that provides for the delivery of unwanted newborn infants to providers of emergency medical care and services. The person delivering the infant "must not be pursued or followed."

I have read the proposed bill and have found some minor shortcomings in it, but there's no doubt it's better than dumping a baby to die in a garbage can. Abandoned dead newborns have become far too common in Nevada and the United States. Three states took action in 1999 to meet the challenge and eliminated the threat of prosecution for anyone leaving an unharmed infant with an emergency medical service.

Rawson's treatment of the person delivering the baby to a provider of emergency services is as follows:

As used in this section, "provider of emergency services" means:

The Nevada bill, like a Texas law, states that these humane conditions are to be met if the infant appears to be not more than 30 days old. I would suggest that this be expanded to at least 90 days or more because not all of the infants abandoned are newborn. A mother may struggle for weeks and months before abandoning the baby in desperation.

As this column pointed out last year, Debbe Magnusen, founder and director of Project Cuddle in Costa Mesa, Calif., has rescued 190 babies from abandonment and possible death. It would be wise for Nevada lawmakers to spend some time with her as they fine-tune SB191. She wants to take this entire process one step further in making an effort to keep the mother from being abandoned. Magnusen fears that a loosely written Texas law may actually encourage some mothers to abandon newborns.

Rawson and the ladies from Las Vegas deserve our support as they seek to help unwanted babies live and eventually meet their potential as adults. Every baby deserves the opportunity to at least have a fighting chance to live and join the society into which he was born.

I haven't seen any recent statistics, but in 1998 108 newborns were abandoned in our country. This is only the number reported because we don't know how many were buried or reached the garbage dump unnoticed. Also 31,000 babies were left in hospitals that same year, but at least they have been given a chance to live.

Las Vegas has been declared an asylum for writers whose lives are threatened in their home countries. Now Nevada has the opportunity to join other states encouraging the saving of newborn infants.