“When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river bank.” Exodus 2:3
It’s one of those Bible stories that grips your heart and widens your eyes: trying to save her young baby boy from the sword and savagery of a genocidal tyrant, a desperate Hebrew mother chooses the perils of the Nile River as the safer option. She places her baby boy in a waterproof basket and surrenders him to the river’s current.
It was a surrender, but it wasn’t an abandonment.
In God’s providence, the tyrant’s own daughter draws the baby from the water unharmed, names him Moses, and adopts him as her own.
One life saved! And a Hebrew nation rescued from slavery. A mother’s loving surrender changed the course of history.
Desperate mothers in Montgomery, Alabama, now have this same option to surrender their newborn children legally and safely: a Safe Haven Baby Box. This baby safety device was installed this week at Fire Station 10 and celebrated by the Mayor as “a way forward for someone that is overwhelmed and [one that] protects the life of a newborn who deserves love, care, and a future.”
These baby boxes — typically installed at a hospital, fire station, or other facility with medical personnel — allow a newborn baby to be anonymously placed inside a secure, climate-controlled compartment, which is dual-alarmed and under 24-hour camera surveillance. The firefighters or other medical personnel are immediate notified that a child is in the “box,” and they spring into action.
The idea is that the baby is immediately surrendered and cared for — and mom can legally and quietly walk away. No questions asked.
Too many children are harmed (or worse) in the womb, and too many newborn children are harmed (or worse) once out of the womb. Even for mothers in healthy relationships and family settings, post-partum effects and depression can be crushing and scary.
Parents fight to protect and care for their children. But for some desperate mothers in crisis, surrender may be the best way to protect their children from harm.
Thanks to devices like the Safe Haven Baby Box, a mother of a newborn in Montgomery now has the loving option to surrender her baby to caring professionals and, hopefully, to a loving adoptive home.
There are now 17 baby boxes throughout Alabama and hundreds around the country.
Does your city have a baby box? Contact Safe Haven Baby Boxes to help bring one to your community.
Do you know of a child that needs a loving home? Contact The Adoption Law Firm today. We can help make a surrender a success.
~ Ben DuPré, Esq.
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