Nebraska’s Safe Haven Law Has an Unintended Consequence: Parents Abandoning Teens!

By Alex in Baby & Kids, Crime & Law on Oct 8, 2008 at 2:19 pm

Parents: tired of dealing with unruly teens? Wish you could just drop him or her off and be done with it?

Well, because of a poorly worded safe haven law in Nebraska, people are doing just that:

Nebraska’s vaguely worded safe-haven law has already been exposed as ripe for abuse by allowing kids as old as 18 to be abandoned by their parents, but a new problem cropped up when a 14-year-old Iowa girl was brought across the Missouri River and left at an Omaha hospital.

The teenager left at Creighton University Medical Center on Tuesday — the 17th child abandoned since Sept. 13 — came from Council Bluffs, Iowa, which sits just east across the river from Nebraska’s largest city. [...]

State Sen. Arnie Stuthman of Platte Center, who introduced legislation that was the basis for the law, has said he initially intended to protect infants from immediate danger. Senators who pushed for the law’s expansion have said they intended to help a broader age range, imagining a toddler or other young child needing help. They didn’t expect parents to drop off older children who, they said, are more likely to escape a dangerous situation.

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  1. Craig
    Oct 8th, 2008 at 2:51 pm

    When my parents get too old to take care of themselves, can I drop them off in Nebraska?

  2. Goober
    Oct 8th, 2008 at 3:18 pm

    Only an idiot didn’t expect this. And not all state legislators are convinced the current law is broken. There is resistance to updating it.

  3. CheeseDuck
    Oct 8th, 2008 at 3:20 pm

    That is quite sad.

  4. PaulVI
    Oct 8th, 2008 at 4:02 pm

    Now the teens know how their parents _really_ feel about them. You wanna see a messed up relationship? New game…

  5. Senior Taco
    Oct 8th, 2008 at 4:20 pm

    In Red states Family Values mean how much can i sell my kids for?

  6. Me
    Oct 8th, 2008 at 6:00 pm

    If they drop off a kid to abandon they should forfit any other kids they have as well, and be sterilized so they don’t just keep breeding more kids they don’t want or can’t or won’t take care of.

  7. beerorkid
    Oct 8th, 2008 at 6:14 pm

    I am a Nebraskan who works in the legislature. This has been major news around these parts. It is a bummer for sure.

    Meetings are happening, a special legislative session has been considered.

    One parent dropped off 9 children. Fortunately an extended member of the family took the children in.

    We are unique that we have a unicameral which is nonpartisan, but sometimes a good intentioned bill can have negative consequences.

    Good news will come from this though. More options for parents that cannot handle their children are being exposed and considered to help such situations.

    Still, it is nice to have gained such attention. A friend heard a morning radio show making fun of us as rednecks in Alabama. That one kinda hurt ;)

  8. Ali S.
    Oct 8th, 2008 at 9:05 pm

    Well, if anything I think it says a lot about the parents and the kids getting abandoned.

  9. Scotchdrnkr
    Oct 10th, 2008 at 7:35 am

    Hey now when my kid says he’s going to call child welfare because I made him clean his room and do his chores I can say right back to him I’ll just take you to Nebraska and drop you off at a hospital and be done with you.
    Its a typical law that was a good idea but is being used in ways that it wasn’t meant to used.


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