NOTE: This is also linked under our FAQ tab.
As an adoptee, seeing a Safe Haven Baby Box being dedicated in our town today brings up a lot of complicated emotions that most people don’t consider. While the intention sounds heroic, many in the adoptee community see these boxes as a permanent solution to temporary crises—one that comes with a lifelong cost for the child.
Before we celebrate this as a “win,” I’m asking my friends and neighbors to look into the red flags surrounding this organization and the actual impact of anonymous abandonment. We need to ask: Why are we spending $20k per box instead of funding the prenatal care, childcare, and mental health resources that would actually help mothers keep their babies?
Here is why many adoptees are standing against this:
The Illusion of Anonymity vs. Erasure of Identity: These boxes promise 100% anonymity to the parents, but in the age of commercial DNA testing (like Ancestry or 23andMe), “anonymity” is a myth that only lasts until the child turns 18. Instead of a safe, recorded history, we are creating a “DNA time bomb” where adoptees are forced to spend years hunting for their origins through databases. We are choosing a path of “erasure” today that leads to a complicated, unguided search tomorrow.
Bypassing Fathers’ Rights: Because there is no “face-to-face” handoff, a baby can be surrendered without the father’s knowledge or consent. This effectively facilitates the legal “disappearing” of a child from an entire side of their family.
Financial Red Flags: I encourage everyone to look into the organization’s public tax filings. When a “nonprofit” holds a patent on a device and pays six-figure salaries to family members (while charging communities thousands in “service fees”), we have to ask if the mission is truly about the babies or the brand.
The “Band-Aid” Effect: These boxes are a “last resort” that is being treated like a first-choice solution. We are “marketing” abandonment instead of supporting families.
Adoptees aren’t just “saved” babies—we grow up to be adults who have to live with the consequences of these “no-questions-asked” systems. Please, look deeper into the Adoptee Rights Law Center or organizations that are adult adoptee led to hear the voices of those who actually live this experience.
#AdopteeVoice #stopsafehavenbabyboxes
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Patsy Brooks Tallant
Guest Blogger
Unable to keep her child, Patsy’s birth mother arranged a private adoption through family connections. Her own mother knew an older couple—ages 44 and 46—who longed for a child after losing their only biological infant. Bypassing formal agencies, a county judge, social worker, and private attorney facilitated the adoption and falsified records. The adoptive parents were present at Patsy’s birth and took her home shortly after.
Patsy was raised in a loving, stable home and always knew she was adopted. Three years later, the same family adopted her biological cousin. Drawn to genealogy from her teens, Patsy located her birth mother while still in high school but delayed contact. Their eventual reunion revealed five maternal half-siblings, none aware of Patsy’s existence at her mother’s request.
DNA testing later identified her biological father and seven paternal half-siblings; he had already passed away. Patsy has since met all of them and maintains relationships with all paternal siblings , while maternal relationships remain distant to preserve secrecy.
Professionally, Patsy is a Master Pet Stylist of over 49 years owning mobile grooming units and teaching internationally. Today, her focus is adoptee rights and DNA research. Married 42 years with three children and seven grandchildren, she lives a full life, yet the primal loss of adoption remains—a lifelong reality