What’s really behind abortion advocates’ continued attacks on Safe Haven laws

Texas was the first state to enact a “Baby Moses” or infant Safe Haven law (signed in 1999 by then-Governor George W. Bush), allowing parents to anonymously and legally surrender an infant to designated authorities if they felt they could not care for that child. Today, as a result of what began in Texas 25 years ago, every state in the U.S. now has a Safe Haven law to allow for anonymous, legal infant surrender. But you’d never know this based on a recent Salon article penned by Amanda Marcotte, who feels that Texas just isn’t doing enough to save babies’ lives.

Babies who are already born, that is.

Are Safe Haven laws only passed to ‘create the illusion of concern’ for infants?

In an article snarkily titled, “Newborns are being left in dumpsters in Texas, but Republicans don’t seem to care,” Marcotte writes, “Texas has a so-called safe haven law that allows women to relinquish babies to the authorities, no questions asked. For years, it was trendy for Republicans to pass these laws to create the illusion of concern for infant life, and to bolster their false claims to be ‘pro-life.'” She says that “it was never a sincere effort to allow women in dire circumstances a chance to save a baby’s life without getting into legal trouble.”

The Texas Tribune, to which Marcotte’s article links, disparaged the state’s Safe Haven Law just after the reversal of Roe v. Wade in June of 2022, portraying the law — which allows for infant surrender up to 60 days after birth, longer than the majority of states — as one that “hardly anyone uses.” Since “just 172 babies” had been saved by the law as of mid-2022, the author reasoned, and because “…there were more than 50,000 abortions in Texas [in 2021] and the state had almost 370,000 live births in 2020,” then ostensibly, the law isn’t working.

KHOU reported in August of 2024, “According to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, 69 newborn children have been surrendered at safe drop-off locations across the state of Texas over the last five years.” These numbers, along with the other 172 babies, show that on average, about 13 newborns are surrendered each year in the state.

Nationally, according to the National Safe Haven Alliance website, the total number surrendered nationwide is estimated at 4,977 infants since 1999 — an average of around 200 every year. The National Safe Haven Alliance told Live Action News in an email, “It takes a number of months for us to obtain the data from each state…. We cross reference and do our best to track these with data provided from each state.”

Some states have additionally installed “Safe Haven Baby Boxes” (with at least five reportedly at Texas fire stations) to provide even more anonymity for parents surrendering infants. The boxes are relatively new to the U.S.; the first was installed at an Indiana fire station in 2016. In September 2023, Texas began allowing baby boxes as a method of surrendering infants.

Is it really about the funding?

Marcotte seems to be complaining that the existence of the Safe Haven law should be more widely known, and that if Texas lawmakers were truly pro-life, they would provide additional funding to spread awareness.

Directing more funding toward saving the lives of infants is a fantastic idea.

But it seems unclear whether Marcotte is truly upset about a lack of funding to bolster Safe Haven awareness; she goes on to complain about how Texas is funding pregnancy centers (which offer pregnant women and their families tangible resources, parenting classes, support, and more — almost always at no cost to the client). While these pregnancy centers remain largely donor-funded, they have in more recent years also become eligible to receive grants and other government funding, depending on the state.

These pregnancy centers, critics complain, don’t offer women resources to be helpful; they attempt to dissuade women from killing their preborn children, and are therefore unworthy of such funding. Marcotte describes pregnancy centers this way:

The goal of a crisis pregnancy center is not to help women in crisis. It’s to do whatever it takes to keep her pregnant until it’s too late to get an abortion, including through lies, threats, bullying, shaming, and false promises of help.

The goal is not ‘life,’ but punishing the young woman for perceived sexual transgression, either because she had consensual sex or because she ‘tempted’ a man into raping her.

What?!

The goal of pregnancy centers isn’t to “punish” or “bully” women into having their babies or to mislead them with false promises. The goal is to come alongside a woman in need, saying, ‘We will help you and teach you all you need to know, and we can help provide what you need. And if we can’t provide it, we will connect you with others who can. You have options, and you can be a successful parent. And if you feel you cannot parent this child, we can discuss various adoption alternatives available to you. You are not alone in this, no matter what.’

And these centers are not just saying they’ll help. They’re following through. The most recent report on pregnancy centers showed that they provided $358M in services in 2022, including pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, parenting education programs, diapers, wipes, formula, baby clothing, car seats, cribs, strollers, etc. Nearly 90% of those 2,750 centers provided material items and parenting/prenatal education, over 80% provided ultrasounds, and over 70% provided post-abortion recovery/support.

Many individuals who operate or volunteer at pregnancy centers were once parents in need of assistance themselves. They know what it’s like to experience an unexpected pregnancy. Some have had abortions, and want other women to be spared the grief they have experienced. Some even lead abortion recovery classes, helping women to cope after they’ve already chosen abortion. For this kind of dedication to be portrayed as “lies, threats, bullying, shaming, and false promises” is slander of the worst kind.

What is “the main cause” of women leaving their infants to die?

Abortion supporters really began ramping up their denigration of Safe Haven laws (which, again, are even in states with liberal abortion laws) when certain Supreme Court Justices mentioned these laws in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Because pro-life justices discussed Safe Haven laws as an alternative to aborting children, this idea must necessarily be attacked by pro-abortion advocates.

And now, every time a baby is put into a dumpster (only in pro-life states that enacted pro-life laws after Roe v. Wade, of course!), abortion supporters and their friends in the media will rant about how useless it is to have laws against killing babies before birth. ‘It’s more traumatizing for sanitation workers to see what only abortion workers should see!’

WARNING: Disturbing image below.

That’s basically the argument Marcotte makes in her Salon piece:

Abortion bans don’t just kill women. They kill babies. This is evident in the data, which shows a dramatic rise in the state’s infant mortality after Texas banned abortion.

As the Washington Post documented last week, it’s also happening in a viscerally disturbing way, as the number of newborns found abandoned to die has spiked, as well. Babies, mostly dead, are being found in ditches and dumpsters throughout Texas, traumatizing the people who find them and the emergency workers who are called to help. 

Only the biggest liars in the anti-choice movement — and to be fair, there’s stiff competition for that award — would deny that the state’s abortion ban is the main cause of the sharp increase in dead, abandoned babies.

First of all, abortion kills human beings. The same human being that emerges from the womb during birth is the same human being that was in the womb prior to birth, and abortion kills that human being before birth. Complaining that babies are dying after birth because we’re no longer allowed to kill those same humans before birth is an idea worthy of ridicule. It’s madness.

Secondly, yes, it would be traumatizing to see the body of a deceased infant in the trash or on a roadway. It’s also traumatizing to see the remains of aborted children (the ones abortion advocates claim are “fake”). Both are the bodies of deceased human beings and deserve to be treated with dignity. Neither abortion nor abandoning a child like trash after birth affords that human being proper dignity. Neither treats that child with the value he or she inherently has as a member of the human species.

Thirdly, is any “abortion ban” truly “the main cause” of dead, abandoned babies? Anyone who argues that women must be allowed to kill their children before birth so they don’t traumatize the rest of us by killing them after birth surely needs to rethink that position.

Perhaps the “main cause” is actually a culture that has devalued prenatal human life for the past 50+ years, telling women that their own children are little more than “time-sucking monsters” and “lentil-sized, brainless embryos” that will only ruin their lives.

In fact, it was Amanda Marcotte herself who described children in those exact terms, in a 2014 article for Raw Story, in which she let readers know just how much she did not want a baby (language warning; emphases added):

You can give me gold-plated day care and an awesome public school right on the street corner and start paying me 15% more at work, and I still do not want a baby.

I don’t particularly like babies. They are loud and smelly and, above all other things, demanding. No matter how much free day care you throw at women, babies are still time-sucking monsters with their constant neediness.

No matter how flexible you make my work schedule, my entire life would be overturned by a baby. I like my life how it is, with my ability to do what I want when I want without having to arrange for a babysitter…. I like sex in any room of the house I please. I don’t want a baby… Nothing will make me want a baby…

But Marcotte didn’t stop there:

This is why, if my birth control fails, I am totally having an abortion.

Given the choice between living my life how I please and having my body within my control and the fate of a lentil-sized, brainless embryo that has half a chance of dying on its own anyway, I choose me….

[W]hat [a woman] wants trumps the non-existent desires of a mindless pre-person that is so small it can be removed in about two minutes during an outpatient procedure. Your cavities fight harder to stay in place.

And despite all the complaints about a lack of funding for Safe Haven laws (most of which place infants with foster families immediately, allowing them to be adopted thereafter), Marcotte really hates adoption… and a lot of other things:

And don’t float “adoption” as an answer. Adoption? F*ck you, seriously. I am not turning my body over for nine months of gaining weight and puking and being tired and suffering and not being able to sleep on my side and going to the hospital for a bout of misery and pain so that some couple I don’t know and probably don’t even like can have a baby….

… I like not having a giant growth protruding out of my stomach.

I hate hospitals and like not having stretch marks. We don’t even force men to donate sperm—a largely pleasurable activity with no physical cost—so forcing women to donate babies is reprehensible.

It seems that this sort of seething, palpable hatred toward motherhood, pregnancy, and children is far more likely to cause women to discard their children, both born and preborn, than pro-life laws.

Those who prefer death oppose attempts to save lives

Safe Haven laws were designed to be a last-ditch effort to save the life of a newborn who would otherwise be abandoned to die or be actively killed. But the typical pro-abortion response to any law meant to save lives is to complain that it doesn’t solve every societal problem — so it’s a horrible, terrible, no good, very bad law.

This is reflected in a 2023 blog post by Jamie Marsella, lamenting the fact that “Anti-abortion activists and lawmakers frequently frame infant surrender and adoption as a functionally comparable yet morally superior alternative to abortion.” The author calls Safe Haven laws “a narrow solution to the problem of unwanted pregnancies,” despite the fact that these laws were designed for parents in desperate, emergency situations, not as a “solution” to all “unwanted pregnancies.” But pro-lifers must fulfill a lengthy list to truly call themselves pro-life — according to abortion supporters:

These laws do nothing to prevent unwanted pregnancies, provide support or resources for victims of domestic violence or assault, or ensure access to contraception or abortion services for those who do not wish to be pregnant.

Yes, promoting death by abortion would surely defeat the purpose of passing a law to protect human lives.

They don’t offer medical care for pregnant people who cannot afford the costs of pregnancy or childrearing, nor do they offer resources for pregnant people who wish to parent their children but fear they can’t due to lack of resources, safety, or employment.

Well, FQHCs and pregnancy centers can help with some of those things, but… we know how abortion supporters feel about pregnancy centers.

Further, they don’t account for the emotional and psychological toll of infant surrender and adoption on either the parent or the child. Even though these laws putatively prioritize the child, they do nothing to ensure that the children involved will find themselves in a safe and caring environment as they grow.

There are no guarantees of a happy life — not even for those born into ideal circumstances. When choosing an adoptive family or choosing to surrender, a birth mother makes the best choice she can with the information she has at that time. Regardless of whether a child might grow up in difficult or painful circumstances, that child deserves a chance to live.

Sadly, this author offers the usual sentiments from abortion supporters: ‘Don’t you dare pass a law to attempt to save a child from death by abandonment (or abortion), unless you intend to solve every single societal problem, including domestic violence, unplanned pregnancy, poverty, unemployment, and child abuse first!’

Those who promote death say pro-lifers aren’t allowed to try to save children from prenatal homicide unless we fix everything else first (like all the things that abortion was supposed to fix, but didn’t). Then, when that utopia is achieved, perhaps we will be graciously allowed to save lives without accusations of “not doing enough” from those who prefer death.

Riiiight.

Pro-lifers know this is a ruse. Underneath such rhetoric lies the truth: abortion supporters will attack whatever they can in an attempt to portray pro-lifers as evil villains who care only about ruining women’s fun, not about saving babies.

Because the lies enable the killing to continue.

Editor’s Note, 1/10/25: This article has been updated with a comment from the National Safe Haven Alliance.

Tell President Trump, RFK, Jr., Elon, and Vivek:

Stop killing America’s future. Defund Planned Parenthood NOW!