If desperate new mothers only knew ...

Local incident shines light on need for wider education about Safe Haven Law

Published: April 1, 2015

By Dwain Hebda
Little Rock Correspondent

The image of the 18-year-old Hispanic girl, long hair framing a face pale and rimmed with sorrow, started popping up on news websites March 18. It could have been one of a thousand routine mugshots, but it wasn’t. Nine days earlier, Fabiola Torres-Onate had given birth in secret and — frightened and confused, she told authorities — did what many consider unthinkable by placing her newborn son on the porch of a neighbor and walking away.

The event reached well beyond the west Garland County trailer park Torres-Onate called home. Online news outlets as far away as the United Kingdom carried the story of the infant’s discovery and his mother’s subsequent confession and arrest.

A little more than an hour away Rose Mimms, director of Arkansas Right to Life, shook her head.

“I don’t know what this young woman’s circumstances were,” she said. “It’s just tragic what she had to go through, but I give her a ton of credit for not throwing her baby into a garbage can like so many of these mothers in that situation do.”

“I just knew there were women out there making a decision that would haunt them the rest of their lives, when there was a process for bringing beauty out of ashes and this was it.” — State Sen. Cecile Bledsoe of Rogers, who co-sponsored the original Safe Haven legislation

Among the myriad tragedies the incident represents was the fact that it didn’t have to happen at all. Arkansas’ Safe Haven Law, enacted in 2001, was passed to give mothers in situations like Torres-Onate’s a safe alternative for their newborns without the threat of criminal charges for abandonment. Yet few know anything about it, putting babies at risk and mothers in danger of prosecution.

“We can’t depend on young mothers who are scared and desperate like this young mother was in Garland County to just know that we’ve got that kind of a law,” Mimms said.

Reports of the incident also hit hard in the office of state Sen. Cecile Bledsoe of Rogers, who as a member of the Arkansas House co-sponsored the original legislation.

“The bill passed, but there was never any funding for it and so no one knew anything about it,” said Bledsoe, who last year finally got the Department of Human Services funding to better publicize it.

“I just knew there were women out there making a decision that would haunt them the rest of their lives, when there was a process for bringing beauty out of ashes and this was it.”

All 50 states and the District of Columbia have safe-haven laws, which effectively offer the same option: Surrender your newborn in designated safe places without the threat of prosecution for child abandonment. State-to-state variances in the law generally involve where a baby can be surrendered and the time window for doing so.

Arkansas’ law, which allows for surrender of a child to law enforcement agency or medical provider within 30 days, is in line with several other states but contrasts sharply with some of its neighbors. Missouri, along with North Dakota, allow for the surrender of a child up to one year, while Mississippi and Tennessee are two of 13 states with the most restrictive time frame, just three days, according to the National Safe Haven Alliance.

Given that the nation’s first such law took effect in Texas in 1999, Arkansas wasn’t necessarily lagging the field adopting its own statute, but the lack of funds hamstrung its usefulness. Between 2001 and 2013, the last year data was available, just seven babies were surrendered, according to Amy Webb, director of communications for Arkansas Department of Human Services. Webb also noted many of these incidents were so old she couldn’t pinpoint which were left with law enforcement and which were left at hospitals, although she did note at least some of the surrenders occurred in Faulkner, Pulaski, Jefferson, Garland and Crittenden counties.

Thanks to Bledsoe’s funding efforts last session, Webb said informational strategies have stepped up substantially. The ongoing awareness campaign includes paid print, social media and public transportation advertising. In addition, DHS has launched a new website about the law,
arkansassafehaven.org.

For her part, Mimms is urging local Right to Life chapters to take up the cause of promoting the Safe Haven Law along with their other activities.

“I see it as part of the larger effort to protect life in Arkansas and so Arkansas Right to Life is going to try to do more,” she said.

Bledsoe said last session’s funding was a one-time appropriation, but if the time came when more was required, she would be on the front lines to secure additional money.

“If a mother knows about and uses this program, then it’s been a success if it only helps one young person out there to make a decision not to hurt their baby or leave it in an unsafe place,” she said. “I’m just hoping it will make a difference to any mother out there facing that situation.”