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Little study
has been conducted on the issue of newborn abandonment. Safe Place for
Newborns is currently conducting research of its own. While our findings
are still very preliminary, one point that is clear – newborn abandonment is
a tragedy that crosses all categories of age, ethnicity, and socioeconomic
status.
In 2000, more
than one hundred newborns, under the age of three days, were abandoned across
the United States in ditches, toilets, trashcans, rivers, and other hazardous
places. Forty-seven of these children did not survive. As shocking as these
numbers are, there is evidence to indicate that the problem still remains
largely hidden. No one knows how many children are dying, hidden, far from
people who would provide love and care. If our research was broadened to
include children up to a year old, or boarder babies (children whose mothers
give birth in hospitals under false identities then flee, leaving the child
behind) the number would be in the thousands.
Why do parents
abandon their newborn children? While no one can fully understand why a
person would endanger a vulnerable child, two common denominators present
themselves – isolation and denial. Mothers (and fathers) who abandon a
newborn child often believe that they are, and in fact they may be, utterly
and completely alone. Living in this isolation, they are left to wrestle with
problems that they are not psychologically or emotionally equipped to
handle.
Consider the
case from October of 2000 of a 16-year old mother from Muskegon. (Her name
was not released due to her age.) A janitor discovered the body of a newborn
in the trashcan of a women’s restroom at the local high school. When
investigating police officers reviewed the school’s list of students, one of
the officers recognized the name of one student. In 1999, this student had
given birth. At the time, the teenager denied allegations that the baby had
been fathered by her own stepfather, and without her cooperation, the charges
could not be proven.
The teenager
later admitted that the baby found in the women’s restroom was hers, and the
baby’s father was her stepfather. “She knew that if she came home with the
baby there would be all kinds of problems,” said the police officer.
Confronted with this second birth, the stepfather admitted that he believed
himself to be the father of both children.
Although there
had been some sort of intervention in this young mother’s situation in her
first pregnancy, that investigation yielded nothing that could help the
mother. Is it any wonder she didn’t ask for help when she became pregnant a
second time?
Isolation,
however, doesn’t seem to be the only factor. Contrast the Michigan case with
one last April in Saratoga County, New York. Two young boys were out for a
bike ride in the woods near their neighborhood. One of the boys discovered
the body of a newborn baby, wrapped in a towel, lying under leaves.
Investigation revealed that the baby was the abandoned brother of the boy who
found the body. The mother, Rose Mary Ramsey, 29, pleaded guilty to
second-degree murder. Ramsey, whose husband said he did not know his wife was
pregnant, later said that she wanted to hide the baby because the child was
the result of an affair, and she didn’t want her husband to find out.
Tragic cases. These lives of these
mothers remain forever changed by the decisions they have made. Most mothers
who have abandoned and/or murder their newborn children suffer from a lifetime
of anguish and despair over choices made in a moment of desperation. Indeed,
when sentencing mothers found guilty or abandoning or murdering their newborn
children, some judges have imposed lighter sentences, stating that the anguish
the mother was experiencing was more punishment than could ever be matched by
a court.
Are we
forgetting someone?
The mother is the visible person
associated with the crime. We see her tears and hear her anguish, and we do
not find it difficult to have compassion toward her. It is more difficult,
however to express compassion toward someone whom we cannot see. The
invisible person, the voiceless person, is the child whose life was ended. Do
the lives of these children matter? Yes.
Both children
in the aforementioned cases were boys. We will never know who they would have
become, and what they would have said with their now silent voices. These
boys deserved to live, deserve to be remembered - and deserve justice.
byLaure Krupp
Executive Director,
Safe Place for Newborns
When mothers discard their babies:
“Little is known about ‘discarded babies,’ those left in rivers, woods,
trash bins - places other than hospital maternity wards. Typically, authorities group them
together with other child abuse and neglect cases so no one knows how many there are or if
their numbers are growing.
...Of the 13 recent cases in Houston, only four mothers were found - three of them
teenagers, one in her 20s. All were unmarried and lived with their families, none of which
knew of the pregnancies, said Judy Hay, a spokeswoman for Harris County Children's
Protective Services.
...Hay, who has spoken with a number of such mothers over her 29 years in her job said
these pregnancies are crises that threaten the young mothers’ relationship with their
families as well as their education and their futures.
‘The girls were denying it, even to themselves,’ Hay said
...But for the rarer problem of discarded and abandoned infants, no reliable data
exist. (Michael) Kharfen could only say that a search of news stories showed 65 cases
nationwide in 91 and 105 in 1998.”
Sun Journal
January 14, 2000
Abandoned newborns inspire hospital haven
“While the Minnesota Department of Human Services does not keep statistics
specifically on infant abandonment, 26 children under 1 year old were abandoned in 1998 in
the state, said Leesa Betzold, the department's data analysis and reporting unit
supervisor. In 1997, 32 were abandoned.
...from 1983 to 1991, more than 1350 U.S. infants were killed - about one every other
day - before reading 4 months of age, according to a National Institute of Health study
published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Of about 140 Infants who are killed on the first day of life, about 130 are not born in
hospitals, indicating that mothers kill their newborns to hide pregnancy and birth,
according to the study authors.”
St. Paul Pioneer Press
Wednesday, January 5, 2000
Abandoned newborns shock city
“Abandoned children are a sad reality in the nation's fourth-largest city
(Houston) but by the time the rash ended in September, the total - 13 babies in 10 months
- stunned child-protection officials.
Only four mothers were identified in the 13 cases in Houston. One was charged: a
15-year-old girl whose dead newborn daughter was found in a school trash bin. Police said
the baby died of blows to the head.”
St Paul Pioneer Press
Thursday, December 30, 1999
Houston seeks answers to 13 abandoned babies
“While the federal government tracks statistics on so-called 'boarder babies' -
children left inn hospital maternity wards by drug addicted or HIV-infected mothers - it
does not gather data on discarded newborns.
Most major cities, such as New York, keep no records on the problem either. Houston
only began tracking discarded babies this year when the disturbing pattern became
apparent.”
CNN.com
December 30, 1999
Isolation a factor in parents who kill their kids
“...In the last ten years - from 1989 through 1998 - 61 children in Minnesota ages
17 and younger have been homicide victims at the hands of their parents.
In more than half the cases, the mother was the murder, according to an analysis of
statistics from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
...Twenty-six of the victims were infants younger than a year old.”
St. Paul Pioneer Press
Sunday, October 31, 1999
Risk factors for Infant Homicide in the United States
“One quarter of the 2776 homicides (1983-1991) occurred by the end of the second
month... 5 percent occurred in the first day of life... From 1989-1991, 71 percent of all
homicides on the first day of life involved infants born at a place of residence.
The highest risks were associated with maternal education of less than 12 years, a
maternal age of less than 15 years, and no prenatal care.”
New England Journal of Medicine
October 22, 1998
Testimony to the House Committee
on Judiciary II
On SB 275- INFANT HOMICIDE
PREVENTION ACT
In
February last year, I was the detective that responded to our county
landfill where employees had reportedly discovered a dead newborn baby. I
had the misfortune of witnessing the aftermath of what happens to a baby
after being thrown into a dumpster and sent through the bailing process.
The baby had been compressed into an 8x6 bail and the baby’s legs were seen
hanging out of the bail just seconds before she would have been dumped and
buried amongst our filth.
I
saw a baby whose body had lacerations about her legs and her skin was ripped
in different areas of her body. Her wavy brown hair covered head was cut in
half and was mashed. Her legs were twisted beyond belief, and I tried to
convince myself that I was not looking at a baby but the blood covered
little hands and feet told me otherwise. I was looking at a real life
horror story that I, for one, will never forget. An investigation ensued.
An
autopsy showed that the brown-haired, brown-eyed, six and one-half pound
baby girl had been carried full-term and was born alive. The autopsy showed
that she had air in her stomach and air in her lungs. The Medical Examiner
determined that the baby had died as a result of "intentional suffocation."
After a couple of around-the-clock days and numerous interviews, a suspect
was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. Shortly before her
arrest, an investigator with the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office and I
interviewed Christina Fiske at her college apartment. Fiske admitted that
she was the mother of the child and later admitted to killing her baby and
throwing it into the dumpster the following day while at work. During this
interview with us, she admitted that she had concealed her pregnancy and
concealed the birth and concealed the act that she had committed.
Fiske gave us her account of her actions. She told us that she had given
birth in the bathroom of a friend’s apartment and that the baby had been
delivered in the toilet. After several minutes of the baby struggling in
the toilet and Fiske seeing the baby’s arms moving, she pulled her out and
placed her on a towel. Fiske then told us how the baby began to cry and
make sounds. She says that she panicked and fearing that her friend would
hear the baby, Fiske placed her hands on the baby’s chest, neck, and mouth
and, demonstrating for us, pressed her entire weight onto the baby until she
quit moving. In fact, the baby didn’t ever move again.
Fiske then wrapped her baby girl and the afterbirth in a towel and placed it
under the bed that she slept in for some time. After awakening, she then
cleaned things up and placed everything in a garbage bag and put her baby in
the trunk of her car. She then went to her apartment and slept until the
following morning. That morning, she drove to Franklin, where she worked as
an assistant manager at a movie theater and threw her baby into the
dumpster. Fiske told us that she checked the dumpster several times as she
worked that 10-hour day to be sure that the garbage was filling up because
she knew the dumpster was to be hauled to the landfill the following
morning.
After Fiske’s arrest, the baby girl was given a name by someone in her
family. A couple of weeks ago, on February 26, 2001, what would have
been Jessica Nicole’s first birthday, a day when we should have been
celebrating Jessica’s life and thinking of her future, we instead witnessed
the consequences of what happens when you kill your baby. On Jessica’s
birthday, her 21-year-old mother plead guilty to second-degree murder and
will spend the next 8 to 10 years in the NC Department of Corrections.
I
feel that I must tell you a little bit about the mother, Christina Marie
Fiske. During her sentencing hearing, her high school principal and others
testified that in their opinion, Fiske was viewed as a role model for other
students and an academically gifted student who excelled in whatever she
did. Fellow church members testified that Fiske was very active in her
church and willing to help others whenever and wherever needed. Her mother
spoke of her as being a model child and a girl scout, achieving some of the
highest honors available. Her employer testified and considered her a
hard-worker and devoted to her job. Christina Fiske was described as a
leader, and just like these young ladies assisting you here this week,
Christina served as a Page for the NC Senate.
I
made Jessica Nicole a promise that day, while I was standing in that filth,
trying to keep the bugs and birds away from her. I promised to find out who
did this to her and that promise I kept. I also promised her that I would
do my part in trying to keep this from happening again. I started to pray
about it and began hearing about other cases in other states. I had heard
about legislation being passed in those states protecting abandoned babies.
I thought, what about North Carolina?
I
approached my church and spoke from the heart to its members. I told them
that I was tired of reading the letters-to-the-editor and seeing everyone
blast one another and pointing fingers. My community was divided, some
angry, some heart-broken. I needed to do something positive for the
situation, so I decided to start a petition to encourage those responsible
for passing such laws, and my church supported me.
I
wrote a letter that night and the following day, I delivered it to the local
papers. I went before my county commissioners and city aldermen and
requested their support, and received it, along with all their signatures
and letters. I also went to the Chief of Police, social services director,
emergency services director, hospital board of trustees, Kids Place board of
directors (our local child advocacy center), and also my Sheriff. All
agreed to support it and also sent letters endorsing it. All these people
are also who would be responsible for taking in these abandoned babies and
would do so without any hesitation.
Like everything else, this bill may come with a price tag. Can we actually
put a price tag on a baby’s life? Next time you hug your own child or
grandchild, niece or nephew, consider how precious they are and what we
would give up for them. Imagine how precious Jessica Nicole Fiske could
have been to someone. Consider how innocent she was. I’ve done that a
hundred times.
Please support this bill. We know it’s not a cure-all, but if it saves the
life of one baby, won’t it be worth it all?
Testimony given by
Sheriff Robert Holland
Sheriff, Macon
County, North Carolina
Tuesday, March 13,
2001
The following
books contain a great deal of helpful information. We list them here
to be helpful, not as an endorsement of any of the items. We welcome
your suggestions for additions to the Reading list - contact
Safe Place for Newborns.
-
Baby's Breath -
Lynne Hugo, Anna
Tuttle Villegas
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Always in
Our Hearts -
Doug Most
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Mothers Who
Kill Their Children - Cheryl Meyer and Michelle Oberman
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Endangered
Children - Neonaticide, Infanticide, and Filicide - Lita
Linzer Schwartz & Natalie K. Lisser
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