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On June 8, the El Campo, Texas, City Council unanimously rejected a proposal to install a Safe Haven Baby Box at its Public Safety Building. Even members who support the concept of baby boxes have serious concerns. I have not found any media coverage about this defeat and only learned about it in a short comment posted by a box fan on the SHBB Inc Facebook page. Company CEO/founder Monica Kelsey did not comment then or later.
The city’s list of concerns and objections is on pages 32-33 of this staff report submitted to council before the vote. The list closed with this summary
Staff recommends against installation of a Safe Haven Baby Box at the Public Safety Building due to operational concerns, impacts to emergency communications staffing, and the lack of demonstrated need given the facility is already a designated Safe Haven site under Texas law
The real meat of the debate is in the video of the hearing. (15:58-40:00). And boy, is it fun!
The Public Speaks
The public comment portion of the council meeting, full of fact-free facts and the usual If-It-Saves-Just-One denouement, intended to slam-dunk the end of the conversation, took up the majority of the time.
Proponent Judy Peter, unsure of last name but I think this is it), claimed that baby abandonment boxes could be a “solution” for pregnant teens, domestic violence and rape victims, and mothers unable to care for another child. She seemed sincere and not malevolent, but her “solution” erased these women from their situations and reasonable and humane assistance resources. Most importantly, she insulted and objectified them as potential criminals, implying that she saw only two outcomes for their babies: the dumpster or the ditch.
Ms Peter dived into the “devastating effects” of infertility in El Campo. She suggested that potential box moms have a duty to fulfill the parental desires of the local desperate and childless by recycling their babies in the box for them to adopt. She even used her daughter’s personal infertility struggle as an example of how adoption of an infant healed her inability to conceive. And the topper: At the age of 40, after adopting a newborn years earlier, she gave birth to twins! (How many times has that story been hauled out?)
Ultimately, Ms Peter pushed SHBBs as utilitarian and transactional–a boon to consumers and workers aka baby producers. The unsaid message: one person’s trash is another person’s treasure. Please! Someone! Where can I find a Marxist deconstruction of baby boxes in post-capitalist America? What academician, what journal, no matter how obscure, cares enough to suffer that wretched analysis? I promise?! I will read it.
Jane Smith, another lead advocate, made the astounding claim that traditional safe haven organizations don’t offer support services to mothers- -while SHBB Inc does. Parents who utilize trad SH drop-offs, she said, “walk out the door with nothing” while box moms walk away with a 24-hour hotline staffed by a “professional psychologist” (licensed?) and an orange canvas bag full of SHBB Inc propaganda and helpful “advice” including an information packet of local service providers, and the company’s own unpofessional family history/health registration form.. Smith said she couldn’t get her hands on a sample orange bag to show city council since she’d have to pay for it.
Seriously!
Mrs. Kelsey cries poor, but I doubt her latest 990 $4 million revenue stream would bleed out over a few pages of xeroxes.
Think what you will about safe haven laws and advocate organizations, but:
Trad drop-off locations offer one-on-one personal handovers and immediate medical treatment. Hospital locations also offer immediate counseling and assistance referrals. Trad SH organizations offer their own counseling services and material assistance such a baby supplies, clothing, and social services and housing referrals. They report that about 25-30% of their callers change their minds before or after using the law, and decide to parent, turn custody over to other family members, or enter into open adoptions. As far as we know, out of the 84 cases SHBB Inc reports, only one was returned to parents (over Mrs. Kelsey’s objections), and 1 or 2 children appear to be in open adoptions (but we’re not sure). That is, 083-2.5%.
And, check this out:
In a letter to the Norwalk, Iowa, Indianola Independent Advocate ,researcher and adoptee rights activist Michelle Spear described her experience picking up the orange bag packet at the Norwalk SHBB location. The packet included referral information to Missouri DDS! Firefighters told her they had no idea what was even in the bag.
Ohio box opponent Chris Hicks had a similar experience. Back in 2022, he reported walking into fire stations and getting packets from box locations for the asking. The packet he received from his own Union Township Fire Station #50 sent box moms to a midwife facility in Ft Wayne Indiana, about 100 miles away! (Hicks presentation before the Ohio Public Health Review Board,July 29,2022. p2)
Anyhow, everything went hunky-dory for proponents until, City Council, staff report in hand, took the mic
City Council Responds
Council member Tom Coblenz, describing himself as “pro-life,” addressed the elephant in the room: “Is there any evidence that a baby box is even needed in El Campo?”
And then,,, and then….like us, he brought up that little problem of identity and family loss, and lack of medical and social history–the pesky issues that box pushers seldom care about or address other than “would you prefer a dead baby? To that crowd, adoptees who object to boxes are “mentally challenged.” Ingrates. unthankful for “the gift of life” so unselfishly granted us by SHBB Inc. In other words, we reject Adoption Phantasia–that strange Hollywood/Christian mixture of what adoption and adoptees are. Opps! At least nobody told Mr Coblenzl he wants dead babies jamming up the streets of El Campo!
Thank your pea-pickin’ heart, Mr. Coblenz for remembering the disremembered.
City Manager Courtney Sladek assured crestfallen box proponents that “everyone” supports the idea of SHBB, but questioned how the proposed box would serve the “needs” “of El Campo. (1) The Public Safety Building was not built for anonymity, because cameras are all over the location, making it impossible for a parent to stick a baby in the box anonymously absent snoops. Same with the fire department. (2) The city’s insurance company advised that El Campo would have limited liability if they let a box be installed, a problem we address in our testimony and educational material. which could cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars or more if something went wrong.
The Future?
In the 10 years I’ve followed the SHBB movement, I don’t remember such an emphatic rejection by a state or local legislative body on grounds of liability, operational issues, and adoptee rights. Things might change later in El Campo, but until then, the wicked witch remains crushed under the house.
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