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Last week, National Right to Life recounted a recent “safe haven” case in Stafford, Virginia. A Baby Found and Saved and a Mother Helped. It’s a typical agit-prop puffer extolling the state’s safe haven law, which allegedly “saved” this newborn. Then, I read the article. OhOh! By no stretch was this a safe haven case. Just the opposite. A baby was not turned over personally to a hospital or first responder location or dropped into a Safe Haven Baby Box. It was abandoned in a city park!
Initial news stories reported that a passerby found an abandoned newborn at Embry Mill Park in Stafford, Virginia.
The park, according to media descriptions, is a “major hub” and recreational facility. It contains 6 multi-use synthetic turf fields, 5 grass rectangle fields, a playground, nature trails, wildlife, 3 restrooms, a swim and sports center, and a snack bar. I looked further and found that it is located on 6.8 acres, comparable to about 3 average city blocks.
Two days later, authorities reported that the unnamed mother had been located, “was safe,” and that no charges would be filed. No explanation was given for that decision other than the sheriff wanted to “protect the privacy of the mother and child.” From the brief message is difficult to ascertain if they have been reunited or what else is going on, and if this might turn into a constructed safe haven case.
Rightly or wrongly, sometimes police or judges decide that abandonment cases should be handled as safe haven cases, due to what they perceive as the “good intentions” of the abandoning parent, even though “good intent” does not fit into the state’s legal protocols.
These decisions are rare. They usually happen when a parent leaves a newborn near a safe haven location, like a fire station door or a hospital restroom. Dawn Geras, founder of the Save Abandoned Babies Foundation in Chicago, and an outspoken critic of baby abandonment boxes, has for years, warned publicly that these “intentional” adjudications are not legitimate safe haven drop-offs. They are dangerous and give parents the wrong message. Firefighters, for example, could be unaware for hours of a baby left at their door, which can occur easily at unstaffed (or even staffed) fire stations or at night. I am sure that other trad safe have advocates agree.
Here is how Olivia Gans Turner, president of the RTL affiliate Virginia Society for Human Life (VSHL), co-founder of Women Exploited by Abortion, and former director of the American Victims of Abortion (AVA), reported the story. (Bold mine)
On Tuesday May 12th, an infant was found in a Stafford County Park. The newborn was taken into care immediately and is well. Only a couple of days later the baby’s mother was identified. The Mother will not face any charges because Virginia has a “Safe Haven” law which allows a mother to safely and anonymously place her baby in the care of a hospital, fire station or other first responder locations for 30 days after birth, no questions will be asked.
Safe Haven Law requires the child to be placed in a designated safe haven location. Generally, babies left outside of safe haven locations is considered abandonment and possibly neglect. Fortunately, charges were not filed against the mother in this case.
The rest of the article is about how safe haven laws operate. There is even a quote from the National Safe Haven Alliance (NSHA) that is in clear opposition to Gans Turner’s claim that the Embry Mill case aligns with Virginia’ ‘s safe haven law specifications and “saved” the baby.” I hope someone from NSHA has a little talk with her.
Even the casual reader can see this RTL article makes no sense. Being an uncasual reader, however, I read it at least 5 times before I wrote this, to figure out if I missed something. That is, how does the Stafford case have anything to do with Virginia’s safe haven law except to publicize that it wasn’t used?
It doesn’t.
Why Gans Turner twisted the case into a hodgepodge of confusion is a mystery. Is she having trouble with reading comprehension? Does she not understand haven law and its policies and procedures? Or maybe she and RTL just don’t care as long as they can push their propaganda to an uninformed public? (You know what Rahm Emanuel famously said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. “) Whatever…the article makes VSHL and RTL and Gans Turner look stupid and ignores the obvious:
Embry Mill Park is not a legal safe haven first response location–a hospital or a fire station. It is an empty field, a park.
We don’t know the reason why Stafford authorities decided to decline charging the mother with discarding or related crimes. We are unlikely to learn the answer, but that doesn’t matter. Embry Mill Park isn’t a safe haven, and Olivia Gans Turner and National RTL shouldn’t act like it is. The Virginia safe haven law has nothing to do with this case. It doesn’t even meet the standard of using a discard case to push use of the law and horn-toot their support for it. it. It just says that leaving a newborn out in the open at a park or other public place where it might be found might be OK.
First, it was supermarkets; then gas stations. (see this) Now public parks. What ‘s next? County fairs? Bowling Alleys? Taco Bells? Or as I suggested earlier casinos? What’s wrong with these people?
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Written at London Writers Hour, May 25-26, 2026
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