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Jessica White, a Safe Haven Baby Box pusher from Kingsport, Tennesse, is a busy beaver running from town to town in Sullivan County along the Northeast Tennessee-Virginia border, persuading city councils, county commissions, and fire departments that they desperately need SHBB Inc contraptions in their walls, even if according to SHBB Inc own stats (December 2023) only 7 cases of newborn discard have been reported since 2017. For once this lines up with my own raw data, though a couple of cases are under-reported and possibly don’t fall under SH protocols and can’t be used. None of the cases I’ve archived occurred in the Sullivan County area.
I don’t know how many trad safe haven cases are on record in Tennessee but only 1 box case has been reported in 2 years. Currently, the state is home to 11 boxes.
So far White has raised $20,000 to reimburse Sullivan County for an installation. The August 15, 2024, Commission Minutes, gives a more nuanced view of White’s fundraising method (Item 12) but that’s a topic for more research and another day.
The Kingsport Herald-Courier reports that Ms White’s passion for Safe Haven Baby Boxes is fueled by… gossip.
Yes, you read that right!
Gossip!
According to her, if a mother uses the traditional personal handover method at a state-authorized SH drop-off station, the whole town will become abuzz with the news–as if firefighters pin scarlet SH letters on moms’ chests.
In White’s own words:
It’s going to be all over Facebook, “so and so gave her baby away.“
What???????
I really don’t know how to respond to this absurd outburst of moral panic other than this is the dumbest excuse for a Baby Box I’ve heard since the whole thing started.
This simply is not true. Trad Safe Haven cases are tight The only way identities get known is if the “relinquishing” parent identifies themselves to authorities, and that doesn’t go public except in extraordinary circumstances.* In the 25 years that I’ve documented safe haven news, I have not once seen a mother’s name released to the public.
Ms White, then, must have an unusual interest in the parenting decisions of total strangers’ and spend an inordinate amount of time on social media tracking down gossip.
Please, Ms White, give us the receipts! Show us the public naming of trad SH mothers on social media or any other public place. If you can’t prove your weird conspiracy theory, we can only assume that to paraphrase a certain current VP candidate you make up stories so that the American media (and politicians) pay attention
This whole thing is embarrassing.
Coulda Woulda Commissioners
But we’re not finished with Sullivan County!
We have Coulda Woulda County Commissioners Herschel Glover and Jessica Means with personal issues they need to work on, which they use to justify their ardent support for legalized baby-abandonment-by-baby- box.
At the 1st reading of the SHBB resolution, Commissioner Glover projected his (Mommy?) issues onto the discussion by imaging himself being “saved” by a Baby Box because…because…because:
My mom and dad divorced when I was very young. I could have ended up in one of those boxes.
I repeat myself.
What???????
Could a Philadephia lawyer please explain since I have no idea what that means unless Glover meant to say he could have ended up in a trash can. And even then….the chances were…
The Commish’s reasoning is just plain screwy. Excuse me for being so inarticulate right now, but I’ve spent 2 hours trying to unravel this Gordian knot of contradiction and have come up with nothing but numb fingers and an odd desire for a shot or 2 or 3 of Glenlivet. Should a SHBB Inc flyer be attached to divorce decrees?
At the same meeting, Commissioner Jessica Means outed herself as a very young unmarried teen mom who might have been attracted to the baby box if one had been available to her:
She also said she got pregnant at 14 and gave birth at 15 and understands first hand what some new mothers in such situations face.
Instead of advocating for genuine financial and social support for pregnant teens and young mothers, like she herself once needed, Commissioner Means supports a cycle of misogyny and abuse that she perhaps herself suffered. She espouses anonymizing mother and child, shoving babies down the memory hole, and the civil rights of both in the dumpster. We don’t know if she kept her baby.
I’ve read some pretty obtuse discussions on Safe Haven Baby Box need and efficacy, but Sullivan County, Tennessee, wins the lBue Ribbon. A place where alleged mean girl gossip and unresolved personal issues of smalltown politicians force the passage of absurd and harmful public policy decisions.
Instead of shelling out for Baby Boxes, the commissioners should hire a county therapist.
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* I know only one case where a parent’s name was made public. This happened in the early 2000s in Syracuse when a man in his 30s brought a newborn to an ER for safe haven services. His story fell apart when he said he found the baby in a nearby park. Hospital security and police quickly ascertained that his 13-year-old “girlfriend” with his “assistance” had given birth to the baby earlier that day. He was charged and convicted of statutory rape and I believe other offenses and sent to prison. The mother’s name was never released. Does Ms. White have a problem with this?
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