Activist questions validity of baby box movement

Controversial group Safe Haven Baby Box was created as a way for women to surrender their children anonymously. Adoption-centered organizations have criticized it.

Abandoned babies have long been something that society has dealt with. In Europe, baby hatches were installed in homes for women to turn them over instead of killing them. In his iconic song Brenda's Got a Baby, Tupac Shakur rapped about a preteen leaving a baby in a trash can. 

In modern American times, they have been accepted since Texas adopted a “Baby Moses” law in 1999 that allowed mothers to turn over a child within 60 days of having it anonymously at a fire station or hospital. Monica Kelsey, an Indiana woman who some activists claim operates with an antiabortion agenda, leads the current movement. 

Kelsey started Safe Haven Baby Boxes, a nonprofit that installs these baby boxes at such locations. She’s been profiled in publications across the country, including The New Yorker and the New York Times. 

Her organization installed its first baby box in Woodburn, Indiana, after Kelsey traveled to Africa and was inspired by seeing a similar contraption at a church, according to Marley Greiner, founder of Stop Safe Haven Baby Boxes, a group that pushes for adoption-centered policies for unwanted babies. Greiner spoke to Repro Rights Now about their work. 

According to Greiner, the Safe Haven movement has gotten a lot of money from Indiana Right to Life. The Knights of Columbus also donated money. 

Though she’s opposed to the traditional safe haven movement as well, Greiner wanted to explain how the current incarnation is different than previous ones. 

“(You’d) have to turn the baby over face to face with someone,” Greiner said. “You don't have to give any information. You could just say I really want to safe haven this baby and walk out the door.” 

In January, Greiner testified before the Kansas House Committee on Child Welfare and Foster Care. She said the promotion and use of Safe Haven Baby Boxes is anti-adoptee, anti-adoption, anti-family, and unethical. 

“Baby Boxes are a slap in the face of every parent who has followed standard and ethical child relinquishment procedures,” she said “They are a slap in the face of the 6 million adopted people in the United States today who are subjected to archaic and discriminatory adoption secrecy laws such as sealed birth and court records.” 

Adoptees generally have rights afforded to them, including birth certificates and other documentation that tell them about their adoption. The Safe Haven movement doesn’t address those problems, Greiner said. 

Much of the media coverage has been praiseworthy, which confounds Greiner.

“Everybody has picked up on this now I see this in news articles all the time there's a way where a desperate woman can now surrender a child. They won't have to raise it. What is this? There's always been a way. Is adoption illegal?”