Texas A&M University School of Law Texas A&M Law Scholarship Faculty Scholarship 1-2009 Kairos and Safe Havens: The Timing and Calamity of Unwanted Birth Susan Ayres Texas A&M University School of Law,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar Part of the Criminal Law Commons, Family Law Commons, and the Health Law and Policy Commons Recommended Citation infanticide, neonaticide, legalized abandonment of newborns, safe haven laws, unwanted pregnancy, anonymous birth, baby flaps This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Texas A&M Law Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of Texas A&M Law Scholarship. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. KAIROS AND SAFE HAVENS: THE TIMING AND CALAMITY OF UNWANTED BIRTH SuSAN AYRES* ABSTRACT It is impossible to know the number of infants killed or illegally abandoned at birth. No official reporting requirements exist, but con- servative estimates claim that in the United States, 150-300 infants are killed within twenty-four hours of life and that over 100 infants are illegally abandoned. Beginning in 1999, in an effort to stem the problem of neonaticide and illegal abandonment, states began enact- ing laws to legalize abandonment. By 2008, all fifty states had enacted safe haven laws, which allow parents to anonymously abandon new- borns by delivering them to designated providers, such as hospitals. This article provides a practical and theoretical framework to discuss safe haven laws, which have come under attack by various adoption groups and legal scholars who claim the laws are ineffective.