by 
Give Arkansas Times editorial director and blogger Austin Bailey a Big Gold Star!
Earlier this week, Bailey, in response to the arrival and blessing of a baby box in Cabot, Arkansas, posted Got a baby you don’t want? Shove it in this weird box. The box is #146 in the country and #17 in Arkansas.
In under 400 words Bailey eviscerated baby boxes and those who love them. I can’t tell you how exciting it is to find a journo who actually finds the boxes absurd and doesn’t regurgitate the party line on their keyboard.
A Baby Box is a safety device provided for under state’s Safe Haven Law and legally permits a mother in crisis to safely, securely, and anonymously surrender if they are unable to care for their newborn. A Baby Box is installed in an exterior wall of a designated fire station or hospital. It has an exterior door that automatically locks upon placement of a newborn inside the Baby Box, and an interior door which allows a medical staff member to secure the surrendered newborn from inside the designated building.
These calling cards are available on the Save Haven Baby Boxes website: “No baby dumping cards are great for schools, social events or just to hand out. They come in packs of 250.”
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Bailey’s readers get it, too. Nearly all of the commenters agree with her!
This is my favorite comment:
It’s been said that the best way to judge the health of a society is by how it treats those members who have the least power.
Pro-tip: When your society has “baby boxes” in lieu of a robust health care system rooted in preventative care focused on prospective mothers & their children, it’s not looking good.
When elected leaders gleefully work overtime to kick the “least of these” off of barely minimum health care coverage, it’s not looking good.
It’s says a lot about Arkansas (filled to the brim with politicians who fight each other over who has the most “pro-life” cred) that the number one (by far) medical intervention a mother-to-be can take to increase the odds she & her child will enjoy a healthy gestation, birth & post-partum experience, is to get the hell OUT of this failed state.
Bailey’s piece hasn’t been posted on the SHBB Inc Facebook page, and probably won’t be. The organization does not tolerate even mild criticism. I can imagine the reaction if it were to show up. Judging from reactions to past criticism, SHBB minions would (1) contact the editor to get her fired (phone bombing is popular); (2) call her a baby killer; (3) declare her mentally challenged, or better yet, demonic or satanic; (4) pray for her; (5) accuse her being a Democrat; and (6) throw up their hands and declare that she just doesn’t understand that there is an “epidemic” of baby dumps in the state. I mean, according to SHBB Inc’s stats, there are 3 reported cases since 2017. We need boxes! Women demand anonymity!
I will post a comment on the Arkansas Times later today (registration required.) Austin Bailey has given me hope!
- SSHBBN Arkansas State Page
- SSHBBN Arkansas SHBB Cases
- Facebook Video of Cabot SHBB blessing (half advertisement for Arkansas Right to Life/Half prayer meeting)
All this does is give the parent the right, not to be responsible, and the child is left with no identity. Statistics have not changed just as many babies are left in dumpsters.
Thanks for responding, Margaret. These people could care less about facts. Baby Boxes represent a constructed moral panic created to get people to folow their radical fundamentalist agenda. They’ve eaven got lefties dancing to their tune now.