Georgia, Tennessee expand baby safe haven laws

Georgia and Tennessee have expanded safe haven laws meant to give parents in crisis a legal way to surrender newborn babies instead of abandoning them.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed House Bill 350, also known as the Eliza Jane Warner Act, on May 13.

The law allows hospitals, fire stations, police stations and ambulance services with around-the-clock emergency medical staff to install newborn safety devices, commonly known as baby boxes.

It also extends Georgia’s safe haven surrender period from 30 days after birth to 45 days.

Lawmakers named the measure after Eliza Jane Warner, a baby found dead in a cooler on the side of a road in Georgia in 2019.

Safe haven laws exist in every state. They allow a parent who cannot care for a newborn to surrender the baby safely and legally.

Georgia’s new law also allows anonymous surrender through a baby box.

“What the new law allows for is a truly anonymous dropping off of your baby so that there is no human that is there in that process,” said Dr. Michael Bossak, vice president of the Children’s Hospital of Savannah. “And so this allows for much greater access to allow patients and families to drop off babies that they may not be able to care for at that time.”

The boxes control temperature and trigger alarms when a baby enters them. Under Georgia’s law, the facility must retrieve the baby within five minutes after the alarm goes off.

The baby then goes to the Georgia Department of Human Services for foster care and possible adoption.

Georgia Rep. Mike Cameron, R-Rossville, sponsored the legislation. He said the law helps babies born in difficult circumstances.

“Babies are born in all kinds of places,” Cameron said. “They know they can’t take care of the baby, surrender it and get it to a place where some people can get it into foster care and get it adopted and where it’ll be loved and have a chance to flourish and grow.”

Cameron also said the state should ease the process for mothers.

“It has to be a difficult situation for a mother to want to surrender a child, and we want to make that as comfortable as possible, and least judgmental as possible,” he said.

Safe Haven Baby Boxes has helped expand the use of these devices nationwide.

“We started there in Indiana, and now we’ve grown to 420 boxes in 23 states that have legalized this,” said Pam Stenzel, development director and hotline coordinator with Safe Haven, noting 78 babies had been successfully surrendered through this initiative.

The law does not require Georgia taxpayers to fund the boxes, according to Stenzel.

“We aren’t asking Georgia, the state of Georgia, for money – we’re just asking for Georgia to make this device a legal form of surrender.”

Tennessee lawmakers also passed House Bill 1844, a measure expanding the state’s safe haven law.

The legislation adds ambulance stations with staff scheduled 24 hours a day to the list of approved surrender locations.

The measure also clarifies staffing and monitoring rules to ensure surrendered babies receive immediate care.

Rep. Ed Butler, R-Rickman, sponsored the proposal. It passed unanimously in both chambers.

Tennessee law lets mothers surrender unharmed newborns up to 45 days old at approved locations without fear of prosecution. Nearly 150 babies have been safely surrendered since Tennessee’s law took effect in 2001, according to LifeNews.

Supporters say the expansions provide a compassionate option to vulnerable parents while protecting newborn children.