Legal News

Nebraska to Close Can of Worms, Narrow Safe-Haven Law to Infants

By Dan Slater

For those Law Blog Readers who, after reading our September post on Parenting & the Law were all set to ship their unruly teenagers off to Nebraska, we’ve got some bad news.

The state is moving to eliminate the unintended results of its controversial “safe-haven” law, which allows parents to leave their children at a licensed hospital without explaining why and without a threat of prosecution. All 50 states have safe-haven laws, but the others apply only to infants less than 1 year old. Nebraska’s covered kids all the way up to 18. At least 18 children, aged 22 months to 17 years, have been abandoned since the law took effect in July, reports the AP.

“This was never the intent of the bill,” Republican state Sen. Arnie Stuthman told USA Today last month. “We really opened a can of worms.”

Now the governor and Nebraska’s unique unicameral legislature — it’s the only state, we’re told, that only has a senate — are moving to clean up the mess. The AP reports that the governor and the senate have agreed to change the safe-haven law so it applies only to infants up to 3 days old.

Lawmakers plan to take up the issue in January.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on October 20, 2008 (boomark / email).