Gone Baby Gone
At 7:30 on a Monday morning, a teenage girl holding a newborn baby approached a bus stop in Sacramento. The bus stop is only a few miles from the California state capitol building, where a law called the “SSB” was enacted—the safely surrendered baby law. The SSB allows a desperate mother to give up an unwanted baby within three days of birth, no questions asked, no prosecution for child abandonment, and hopefully no infant left in a trash dumpster, the kind of tragic scenario the law was designed to discourage.
So when the teenager—strawberry blond and about 16—appeared at the bus stop and asked a kind stranger to hold her baby while she fixed a bottle, perhaps she thought she was doing the right thing as she slipped away forever…safely surrendering her infant son. The stranger called the police. The police took the 7 pound boy to a hospital, where he was determined to be in good health, one to two days old.
But even though the police initially said the teenager tried to “do the right thing”, the law says she can be arrested and prosecuted for felony child endangerment because the only legally recognized SSB sites in Sacramento are hospital emergency rooms and fire stations. Bus stops don’t qualify. So the police are asking for the public’s help in identifying the teenage mother, who could go to jail for essentially choosing a bus stop over a dumpster.
If doing the right thing in this case wasn’t the legal thing, is the greater failure with the mother or the law?
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Baby left at bus stop
Being a woman who is desperate to have a child I think California’s law of SSB is phenomenal. I wish more states were like that. Leaving the baby at the bus stop with a complete stranger, not the smartest thing in the world to do. The baby could’ve been given to a convicted child molester and the girl would’ve never known. Only having safe drop offs at hospitals and fire houses is a little vague. If more places were options maybe they wouldn’t be looking to prosecute a girl who did what she thought was right. Having just had two miscarriages in the last year I understand the pain and heartache she was going through losing a baby so I’m sure that had a large part in her cloudiness of dealing with the situation.
Heather | 1 year, 10 months ago
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.... Missing the Point...
Being that it was a teen that dropped the baby off, does that necessarily mean that it was the teen’s baby? I mean think about this. Most mothers out there after having a baby take several days to recover after birth. If I’m wrong please let me know. It may have been her friend’s baby or something to that effect.
Let’s say it was her baby, why should she be persecuted for doing what she may have thought was the right thing to do for herself and the baby. Maybe she didn’t know the law. I mean think about it. She was a teenager. Who knows how old she might have been? Many teenagers are not interested in Policy or New Laws. I know I wasn’t up until around 17 or 18 and even then it was a minimum. She is a teen. Teens don’t think straight at times. They have many things on their mind during their teenage growth. She may have been in a very awkward position in which she didn’t know what to do. It’s not like this person was a full grown responsible (or irresponsible) adult. I mean think about this. You have full grown adults out there who have done much, much worst than that. Hey who knows…? She probably ran away from home and had the baby and gave it away because she wanted to go back home. Anything is possible and passing judgment upon her for being exactly what she is – a scared, lonely, confused teenager – is totally wrong. She should be pitied and given comfort and understanding as well as information and counseling rather than persecution and sentencing. Right and wrong does not relate to this type of situation. Doing anything other than the above would be a slap in the face to all teenagers and most likely cause things to go back to the point where teenagers who see what happened to this particular teen, will just be doing the dumpster (or worse) things all over again and putting innocent children in harms way.
Romeo Robertson | 1 year, 10 months ago
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Its the law
I did see “Gone Baby Gone” and the bottom line here is the law is the law. The character in that movie should have called child protective services. Yes, it is wrong for people to neglect their children- BUT that is why there are laws in place to protect children and there are procedures to be followed in those cases. You should never take matters into your own hands.
That being said, this teenager should go to jail. She broke the law. There are all kinds of places that she could have taken the baby and not been questioned at all- and the baby would have been safe. BUT she chose to do it the illegal way. There are consequences to your actions.
sarah t | 1 year, 9 months ago
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state of mind???
Why does everyone keep saying “her state of mind” and “she must be mentally ill” WHAT???!!!! It wasn’t as though she was distraught or delirious. The girl had a plan and executed it. She had to be in some good state of mind to pull it off. “Here, let me check my bag…oh, c-ya!” Not only that but ignorance doesn’t get you that far. I knew at 16 where to take a baby- her high school counselor could have told her that if she wasn’t aware. No excuses…none. And to the “stop being judgmental” person- isn’t that what the blog was for- to state your opinion of the situation? We are all asked to read the article and then say what we think. Thats what we are all doing.
sarah t | 1 year, 9 months ago
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Law should be more Thoughtful
The mother could have dumped the baby, but did not. She left the baby with another person. She must have been desperate and, perhaps, not in sync with the proper avenue to travel regarding her and her baby’s certain well being. With that said, she did leave her infant with someone who she believed would do right by the baby and not leave it to perish. I would not search for the mother, as she will remember that she gave up her baby for the rest of her life. For someone so young, her fear might have rendered her incapable of doing anything further than what she did.
Judith A. Eisner | 1 year, 8 months ago
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Limited resources
Police are generally stretched pretty thin and so very little would be gained by devoting limited manpower to bringing this young lady “to justice”.
If she is identified and brought in and charged then presumably the court would be merciful (and practical) given her age and lack of malice. While it is true that just handing off a baby to a stranger could have resulted in a tragedy. I’m guessing 99.99% of people at bus stops would not hurt a baby and would turn them over to authorities.
If she receives probation she might get some counseling and referral to medical resources (Planned Parenthood, etc.)
This would also allow the child to be permanently placed in an adoptive family sooner with a legal relinquishment.
When babies have babies, unfortunate things happen. This could have been much worse.
BJ McArtney | 1 year, 8 months ago
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Self-Esteem?
Perhaps we concentrate so much now on not hurting our children’s egos and on building their self-esteem that we forget about morality, which includes following the law?
Anita chiquita | 1 year, 8 months ago
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Not trying to pass judgement
I think that the law is being picky in situations like this because it has to set boundaries. Otherwise people could technically leave the baby next to a dumpster and say that they left the baby somewhere safe. There is no way for the girl to know whether the lady she left the baby with was competent enough to take the baby somewhere safe. I think that is why the law is strict and has specifications like that. Luckily, things worked out for this baby and he is safe now. Someone needs to make sure that the public is made aware of what is considered a Safe Surrender Site and what is not so that things like this don’t happen again.
Jenn | 1 year, 7 months ago
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Put it in God's hands....Not our own!
In my opinion she did what she thought was right at the time, at least she didn’t kill or throw the baby away.
Maybe the media needs to remind every now and then on the baby safe places.When you have young kids having kids we cannot always assume they are always going to fully think something through before they decide to do it.
Anonymous | 1 year, 1 month ago
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Baby
This was a very young girl who thought she was doing the right thing. Maybe she didn’t have a full understanding of the law. I don’t think she should be criminally prosecuted at all.
Debbie | 1 year, 1 month ago
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