Safe Haven Baby Boxes Inc to Politico: “No Comment”

MEEEOOOWWWW!

Saturday, Politico published a piece on our favorite baby box company: With a 6-week abortion ban in place, Florida eyes “Safe Haven” expansion. The article focused on the recent effort by Florida lawmakers to expand safe haven law coverage and an earlier failed attempt to write baby boxes into the current state safe haven law. Frankly, I found the article a tad confusing. (I probably know too much about baby box politics than is good for a sane mind, so I get picky about things sometimes.) But, that’s not the point. Nuggets (and cat turds) can be mined even from the puffiest of pieces, and here we have it:

Back then, the main focus was on “baby boxes” — authorizing the use of containers at fire stations or hospitals with silent alarms that would trigger when an infant was laid inside, alerting staff of the surrender and therefore allowing the exchange to be anonymous. It met pushback from some lawmakers claiming it was a gimmick primarily intended to enrich one organization, since the organization, Safe Haven Baby Boxes, specializes in the product, [Rep Mike] Beltran said. (A Safe Haven Baby Boxes spokesperson declined to comment.)

A simple inquiry about the financial/distribution monopoly SHBB Inc holds on baby boxes–and ultimately the total control of the baby box political movement–is hardly a controversial or radical question and a refusal to comment is indeed a comment, but not the kind that it’s meant to be.

Monica Kelsey founder of the movement and CEO of SHBB Inc brags incessantly at every box “blessing” and press conference, in every media interview, and news story, and throughout social media that her corporate family-run “ministry “is the only organization in the country “saving babies” and the sole source of Everything Baby Box.

“No comment” means that Mrs. Kelsey, who brags on social media of her personal and the company’s business “transparency,” doesn’t want anyone digging deeper into her baby box business. That her baby box enterprise set-up is horizontal–that it not only manufactures the boxes but manufactures the moral panic that manufactures lawmakers’ and the public’s enthusiasm to install the boxes that are seldom used to remedy a manufactured epidemic (discarded newborns) that doesn’t exist. As we say in our Talking Points, the Baby Box movement:

Promotes and supports the non-profit ministry Safe Have Baby Boxes, Inc., a million-dollar corporation that controls the manufacture, promotion, sales, installation, and referral of women to baby boxes in the United States. It has created the baby box market and lobbies legislatures, produces boxes at its own factory, installs the devices, operates a hotline that refers pregnant women to box locations near them, and holds press conferences when a newborn is left in a box. Rather than protect legitimate privacy interests of the infant, it uses boxed children as fundraising tools for its ministry.

All in the family: One has only to look at SHBB Inc’s IRS 990s (free registration required) to know that Mrs.Kelsey and her husband Joe are pulling down nearly $200k from their unsound intrusion into child welfare and adoption policy that they know nothing about. Mrs. Kelsey’s son JJ Steinmetz is the factory’s production manager (salary unknown).

The bottom line: Who profits? Follow the money.

(More about that in a later post)

We regret that Politico didn’t bring up the nasty lawsuit Mrs Kesley filed recently against traditional safe haven law advocate Nick Silverio, his Miami-based Safe Haven for Newborns organization, and others in the state who have done nothing more than educate local officials and lawmakers about the Kelsey company material and epistemological monopoly and baby box ethical, moral, and tech dangers–a lawsuit we believe Mrs Kelsey will regret. After all, nothing dumps dirty laundry out of the hamper like discovery.

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