Nov. 27--Around 11:20 p.m. on Nov. 11, a distraught 19-year-old Chicago woman secretly gave birth in her bedroom.
Mubashra Uddin hid her pregnancy from her parents, fearing their wrath if they learned about it. She was raised in a strict household where relationships with boys were prohibited.
Prosecutors say that when she heard her mother approaching her room that night, she panicked, opened a window and dropped her newborn daughter eight stories. Discovered by a passer-by, the baby later died from massive internal injuries.
Uddin is now charged with first-degree murder.
Did she know about Illinois' safe haven law? We don't know. But stories like hers stand as a reminder that all pregnant mothers in distress need to know they have options. Uddin could have taken her baby to a hospital, emergency medical care facility, fire or police station, with total anonymity. She could have handed the infant off, no questions asked.
Babies turned over under the Abandoned Newborn Infant Protection Act, commonly known as the safe haven law, eventually get adopted by families who have been screened by child welfare officials and are waiting for a baby. It's heartbreaking to imagine what might have been, had Uddin's daughter been saved under the law.
One week before Uddin's moment of panic, someone else left a newborn daughter wrapped in a jacket near Presence Saints Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center in Chicago. That baby girl survived and will be placed with a family. Because the baby was set down near a doorway and not physically handed to a worker, the baby was considered abandoned illegally. State child welfare officials are investigating. Still, it's likely whoever left the baby knew of the safe haven law and wanted the child to live. That baby now has a chance at a new life.
Since the Illinois law was enacted in 2001, more than 100 babies have been safely turned over at designated sites.
The first was Matthew, a newborn whose overwhelmed mother handed him to nurses after giving birth more than a decade ago. More babies followed, some delivered in hospitals, others in bedrooms or parking lots.
Yet, despite more than a decade of efforts to educate expectant mothers about the law, cases of newborns dying in garbage cans or along roadsides persist. More than 70 babies have been illegally abandoned since the law took effect. About half of them died before someone found them.
The Save Abandoned Babies Foundation, based in Chicago, launched a new outreach effort this month. The organization released a public service announcement that the media and others can access through YouTube. The group has plastered bus shelters with signs and held numerous news conferences to generate awareness. Its founder, Dawn Geras, won't be satisfied until the number of illegally abandoned babies reaches zero.
She and her friends wrote the first draft of the safe haven law at her dining room table after reading about teenage mothers in Alabama leaving their babies in emergency rooms. Today, Illinois' safe haven law is one of the strongest in the country.
Are you a parent? A teacher? Someone who works with girls and young women? Make sure you talk to them about it.
