While studies on the use of baby boxes in Europe and Asia can be found online, virtually no serious critique has been published on boxes in the US—yet. Some of the critiques below are limited to traditional Safe Haven laws, but can be extended to include baby boxes.
A good number of professional articles on Safe Haven laws, baby boxing and anonymous birth are held hostage behind paywalls. These links should be available without charge unless otherwise noted. academia.com requires free registration.
Note: Some links may be cross-posted elsewhere in Critical Readings
Bartels, Lorana. How are women who kill portrayed in newspaper media? Connections with social values and the legal system. Women’s Studies International Forum, 2015 (via academia.com)
Bauer, Tobias. A Discussion of the Baby Hatch from the Viewpoint of a Child’s
Right to a Knowledge of his/her Parentage: Perspectives from the
German Debate. The Japanese Association for Philosophical and Ethical Researches in Medicine. nd
Biehl, Sarah. Validating Oppression: Safe Haven Laws as Perpetuation of Society’s Oppression of “Bad” Mothers, Children’s Legal Rights Journal. 22/4 p. 17-36 (link pending)
Cain, Ruth. “A View You Won’t Get Anywhere Else”? Depressed Mothers, Public Regulation and ‘Private’ Narrative, Feminist Studies, 2010 (via academia.com)
Cornett, Lucinda J. Remembering the Endangered “Child”: Limiting the Definition of “Safe Haven” and Looking Beyond the Safe Haven Law Framework. Kentucky Law Journal, 98/4 2010
Deutscher Ethikrat. Anonymous Relinquishment of Infants: Tackling the Problem. Berlin: German Ethics Council, 2009. (English)
Fenton-Glynn, Claire. An Unbalanced Scale: Anonymous Birth and the European Court of Human Rights ( (203) 72(2) Cambridge Law Review (via academia.com)
Fenton-Glynn, Claire. Anonymous relinquishment and baby boxes: life-saving mechanisms or a violation of human rights. (originally published in Katharina Boele-Woelki and Nina Dethloff. Family Law and Culture in European Development, Challenges and Opportunities (Intersensia) (via academia.com)
Gavin, Helen and Theresa Porter. Infanticide and Neonaticide: A Review of 40 Years of Research Literature on Incidence and Causes, Trauma, Violence & Abuse, 2010 (via academia.com
Hammond, Michelle, Monica K Miller, Timothy Griffin. Safe Haven Laws as Crime Control Theater. Child Abuse & Neglect 34 (2010) p 545-552
Kaplan, Diane S. Who are the Mothers Who Need Safe Haven Laws? An Empirical Investigation of Mothers Who Kill, Abandon, or Safely Surrender Their Newborns, 29 Wisconsin Journal of Law, Gender & Society, 2014
Lynnerup, Niels. Abandonment of Newborn Infants: A Danish Forensic Medical Survey, 1997-2008, Forensic, Science, Medicine, and Pathology, 2011 (via academial.com)
Marsh, James. Safe Haven Law. Marsh Law Firm’s Child Law Blog Archive, September 3, 2003
Milne, Emma. Concealment of Birth: Time to Repeal a 200-Year-Old “Convenient Stop-Gap”? Feminist Legal Studies, 2019 (via academia.com)
Nesca, Marc. Maternal Neonaticide Following Traumatic Childbirth, International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 2010 (via academia.com)
Olejarz, Sylwia Maria. Ethical Concerns Relating to Child Abandonment
and Baby Hatches: The Case of Poland. The Japanese Association for Philosophical and Ethical Researches in Medicine. nd
Racine, Jennifer R. A Dangerous Place for Society and its Troubled Young Women: A Call for an End to Newborn Safe Haven Laws in Wisconsin and Beyond, Wisconsin Women and Law Journal 20 (2005) p. 243-262 (link pending)
Sanger, Carol. Infant Safe Haven Laws: Legislating in the Culture of Life. Columbia Law Review, Vol. 106, No 4. p 753. May 2006. (abstract links to download)
Shalapatova, Ivanka. Child Abandonment and its Prevention, Institute of Work, Health & Organisation, University of Nottingham, 2012
Smith, Erik L. The Art of Procedural Frustration: The Unconstitutionality of Safe Haven Anonymity Laws, Erik L Smith Attorney-at-Law, nd
Smith, Erik L.The Government Hiding Children from Fathers: Ohio’s “Safe Haven” Law and the Separation of Powers Doctrine, Erik L Smith Attorney-at-Law, nd
Smith. Erik L. The Myth of the Right to Privacy as Justifying Anonymity is Safe Haven Laws. Erik L Smith Attorney-at-Law, nd
Stenzel, Paul. Safe Haven Laws and the Indian Child Welfare Act: Conflicting Laws and Policy Goals Leave Indian Children at Risk, Children’s Legal Rights Journal 29/3, p 1-10
Tighe, Sylvia Murphy. Concealed Pregnancy and Newborn Abandonment: Part 1.(via academia.com)
Tighe, Sylvia Murphy. Concealed Pregnancy & Newborn Abandonment Part 2, (via academia.com)
Tighe, Sylvia Murphy. Reframing Narrative of Concealed Pregnancy.pdf (via academia.com)
van Tiggelen. Kerstin. The myth of the Dutch baby hatches (1500-1900) [De mythe van de Nederlandse vondelingenluiken (1500-1900), Sociologos, 2018 (via academia.com)
Watson, Katherine D. Infanaticide, Religion, and Community in the British Isles, 1720-1920. Family and Community History, v 11/2, November 2008 (via academia.com)