Safe-haven law

Some states treat safe-haven surrenders as child dependency or abandonment, with a complaint being filed for such in juvenile court.

Texas was the first state to enact a "Baby Moses Law" in 1999 in a reaction to 13 incidents of child abandonment in that year, 3 of them involving infants discovered dead.

Supporters counter by arguing that anonymity is the only way to convince certain parents not to harm their infants, and that the benefit outweighs any claimed detriment.

[10][11] Under the prior version of the law, at least 35 children were dropped off in Nebraska hospitals in a four-month span, at least 5 of them from other US states.

Unable to allege personal harm, the plaintiff argued that the public had to know in advance that the State would not help parents hide children from each other.

The court dismissed the case, finding that the alleged harm did not rise to the level needed to justify a public action.

[14][15] Thus, the plaintiff's claim that the safe-haven law violated the separation of powers doctrine by circumventing the Supreme Court's rule-making authority remained unaddressed.

The attorney and the guardian ad litem for the child argued that certain statutes of the safe haven act violated the separation of powers doctrine under Art IV, Sec.