Supporters want to update child safe haven law
Apr. 30—CONCORD — New Hampshire is considering joining a growing number of states that allow people to anonymously drop off a newborn in a secure container rather than in person with hospital or law enforcement officials.
A House-passed bill (HB 1607) that likely had its last public hearing Tuesday also would give adults more time to drop a child off without legal consequences — 61 days vs. the current seven.
"New Hampshire's safe haven law is in need of updates in line with other states, which include protections for parents from prosecution solely based upon evidence obtained by the baby's surrender, but not a complete freedom from prosecution," said state Reps. Glenn Cordelli, R-Tuftonboro, and Katy Peternel, R-Wolfeboro, in a joint statement.
This bill, passed by the House of Representatives a month ago, would make the first change to the state's Safe Haven law since its adoption in 2003.
While current law provides for anonymity, bill supporters insist this has not always been followed.
Peternel said when Danielle Dauphinais dropped off one of her children in 2021, hospital officials alerted law enforcement, who later arrested her on other crimes.
Dauphinais is facing trial in the 2021 murder of another child, Elijah Lewis, of Merrimack.
"New Hampshire's safe haven law has become a law enforcement tool to try and capture parents like her," Peternel said.
Several speakers told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the law is not commonly used because adults know they aren't guaranteed anonymity.
Critics maintain the bill would deny these children the right to learn the identity of their real parents later in life and another parent the right to try to gain custody.
Marley Greiner of Corpus Christi, Texas, weighed in on behalf of Bastard Nation, an adoptee civil rights organization, which created a website in opposition to such laws.
"What we want is ethics, transparency, and accountability in adoption and related childcare practices, not a band-aid solution to social, political, and mental health problems that cause newborn discard to occur," Greiner wrote in testimony against the bill.
Under the bill, the box must be voluntarily installed by a hospital or public safety agency, be located inside such a facility and be visible to employees there.
It refers to "infant safety device." Nearly all those in the U.S. are Safe Haven Baby Boxes.
The national organization reports having 223 in use in 17 states, with 44 newborns rescued as a result.
According to the Safe Haven Baby Box website, Maine is the only New England state that allows these transfers to take place without an in-person exchange, though Maine has yet to set up a site.
Supporters pressed the Senate panel Tuesday to make a change and put back in the bill an exclusionary rule, which would prevent admitting any evidence in a civil or criminal case that authorities gathered when the baby was dropped off.
In late March, the House voted, 188-185, against adding that legal protection.
Shannon McGinley with Cornerstone Action, a socially conservative interest group, said that this change would be in the best interest of at-risk children.
"No baby that is left by their parents with a stranger or in a box would have been better off with their parents," McGinley said.
The New Hampshire Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers supported this addition.
Officials representing the New Hampshire State Police, Association of Chiefs of Police and the Department of Health and Human Services all opposed adding the language.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sharon Carson, R-Londonderry, said she struggles with this request.
"We do not want to criminalize the act of dropping the child off. We don't want babies abandoned in dumpsters, bathrooms or hiding in some place to die," Carson said.
Later she added, "It is against the law. Do we turn a blind eye (to a crime) just because we can get one child out of a bad situation?"
