View Full Version : Update to the Nebraska abandonment law
ariastar
09-25-2008, 09:08 PM
Remember the law that allows parents to abandon their kids of any age at any time, Nebraska's version of the Safe Haven law? Well, 11 kids have been abandoned so far in Omaha alone, including one sibling set of NINE kids (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080925/ap_on_re_us/children_safe_haven), five boys and four girls, the oldest who is 17. They are no longer living together due to how many of them there are. People who are leaving kids at hospitals haven't been leaving abused kids, just kids they didn't feel like being parents to anymore.
Now that a little time has passed, have feelings changed? If you supported it before, do you still support it? If you didn't before, do you now?
bigshotprof
09-25-2008, 09:42 PM
I'm confused (really, not making fun). Eleven kids were abandoned nine of whom were in the same family? And two others?
I'm conflicted about it to a degree. On one hand, parents who don't want to be parents aren't likely to do a good job raising the children, so it may be better for the children to be somewhere else. On the other hand, they should have put the children up for adoption when they were babies if they didn't want to keep them.
ariastar
09-25-2008, 11:20 PM
I'm confused (really, not making fun). Eleven kids were abandoned nine of whom were in the same family? And two others?
Bingo. Well, "at least 16" total, just 11 were in Omaha. But yes, nine of those kids were from one family alone. The other two in Omaha were unrelated boys who are 11 and 15.
esophagus
09-25-2008, 11:24 PM
Was their good reason for the other two to be abandoned? Because I don't think "9 out of 11 didn't have a good reason to be given away" is a fair statistic if 9 came from the same parents.
masherscf
09-25-2008, 11:24 PM
I still maintain that any child, no matter what age, who's parents would surrender them in the fashion is better off without them.
tokenuser
09-26-2008, 03:56 AM
Apart from them finding their way home, is this any different to parents dropping their kids off at the mall on a Friday or Saturday night?
esophagus
09-26-2008, 04:32 AM
Apart from them finding their way home, is this any different to parents dropping their kids off at the mall on a Friday or Saturday night?
Thats what I'm wondering.
bigshotprof
09-26-2008, 10:29 AM
Apart from them finding their way home, is this any different to parents dropping their kids off at the mall on a Friday or Saturday night?
No Slurpee machine at the haven.
masherscf
09-26-2008, 12:41 PM
Apart from them finding their way home, is this any different to parents dropping their kids off at the mall on a Friday or Saturday night?
I guess the main issue is that if they "Drop then off at the mall" and forget to pick them up again, the police will arrest them for neglect.
Shit, I won't leave my kids alone in the car for 30 seconds while I pay for gas or mail a letter. We woke them up at 4:15am this morning so my wife could drive me to the train station, despite the expectation that they would have never known she was gone. There's a bond that makes it almost impossible to understand why someone would want to walk away from their children. But, I'm still okay with the law.
comhcinc
09-26-2008, 02:33 PM
I still maintain that any child, no matter what age, who's parents would surrender them in the fashion is better off without them.
that sums up my feeling right there.
bigshotprof
09-27-2008, 01:08 PM
I heard our father of the year on NPR last night. His wife had recently died, and he just decided that "they would be better off without me." The system is trying to get their extended family to take them in. Why didn't Einstein think of that himself?
tokenuser
10-08-2008, 08:40 PM
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/08/nebraska.safe.haven/index.html
A woman crossed state lines from Iowa to drop off her 14yo daughter.
Funny.
masherscf
10-08-2008, 08:47 PM
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/08/nebraska.safe.haven/index.html
A woman crossed state lines from Iowa to drop off her 14yo daughter.
Funny.
They just have to rewrite the law to include elderly relatives and it might as well be perfect.
mikec
10-08-2008, 11:22 PM
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/08/nebraska.safe.haven/index.html
A woman crossed state lines from Iowa to drop off her 14yo daughter.
Funny.
Crossing state lines could bring the fed's into that case. Any child abandonment statutes in the Federal codes? Most Federal laws deal with funding states to prevent child abuse or things like that.
masherscf
10-08-2008, 11:48 PM
Crossing state lines could bring the fed's into that case. Any child abandonment statutes in the Federal codes? Most Federal laws deal with funding states to prevent child abuse or things like that.
There is no law against transporting you're own children across state lines.
The congress could pass a law making it illegal to cross state lines for the purposes of abandoning a child. But, doesn't this law tread on state sovereignty? Shouldn't local communities have the right to decided if this act is acceptable? Wouldn't it be better for Nebraska to amend the law to exclude people who travel from out-of-state from protection under the law, if they felt it was unacceptable.
On the other hand, if it's abused, I have no doubt Nebraska will be revisiting the law. I have no doubt they don;t want to be known as the "Child-Abandonment Capital of the US"
tokenuser
10-09-2008, 01:36 AM
On the other hand, if it's abused, I have no doubt Nebraska will be revisiting the law. I have no doubt they don;t want to be known as the "Child-Abandonment Capital of the US"Apparently when the law was written, there was an assumption that the abandonment would apply to children 72 HOURS (ie 3days) or younger.
People just love finding loopholes in the law though.
This little loophole is being closed.
bigshotprof
10-09-2008, 12:36 PM
Apparently when the law was written, there was an assumption that the abandonment would apply to children 72 HOURS (ie 3days) or younger.
People just love finding loopholes in the law though.
This little loophole is being closed.
If she'd kept her little loop hole closed, she wouldn't be in this mess!
ariastar
10-09-2008, 06:48 PM
Crossing state lines could bring the fed's into that case. Any child abandonment statutes in the Federal codes? Most Federal laws deal with funding states to prevent child abuse or things like that.
Nope, the feds can do nothing. Technically no crime took place. Nebraska's law allows leaving kids up to 19 years old. If she had been left at a hospital in Iowa, it would be a crime. But it was done in Nebraska. Residence doesn't matter with crime, only location of the event. In this case, the location was Nebraska, where it's legal.
Nice little loophole for parents when it comes to child support. If you can drop off your kid and owe nothing, then parents who owe a ton of support for whatever reason (no wank about deadbeats - most dads are behind because the amount set is way out of line) can theoretically drop their child off when they have their visitation and not owe anymore.
ariastar
10-09-2008, 06:51 PM
Apparently when the law was written, there was an assumption that the abandonment would apply to children 72 HOURS (ie 3days) or younger.
People just love finding loopholes in the law though.
This little loophole is being closed.
If I heard a law in general was for children, I'd think it included children older than 72 hours. In South Dakota, the cut-off is a year old. In Nebraska, a child, a minor, is up to 19 years. So it's not really a loophole as much as it is something that should have been clarified from the start.
ariastar
10-10-2008, 06:48 AM
That 14yo is back with her grandparents. Apparently they took her to Nebraska to abandon her to, uh, "teach her a lesson (http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/09/safe.haven.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview)."
masherscf
10-10-2008, 08:44 AM
The lesson that her grandparents are a couple of douchbags, I bet she got that memo already.
ariastar
10-11-2008, 01:54 AM
The lesson that her grandparents are a couple of douchbags, I bet she got that memo already.
Being raised by her grandparents, she's probably already got abandonment issues with mom and dad not being there. So I'm wondering how this case is considered to be non-abusive. The emotional damage this poor girl must be suffering, and the humiliation! And then they didn't drive just over the border into Nebraska, they drove to the far side if the state! They gave this poor girl that much more time to know she's being abandoned again!
Just wait until it comes time to pick their nursing homes. I hope she lets them rot in a poorly-funded state-run hell-hole.
ariastar
10-14-2008, 08:14 PM
It happened again. Another out-of-state teen abandoned in Nebraska (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081014/ap_on_re_us/safe_haven).