[edenstore]

I agree with raybuffer 100%. And I will contact the New Hamp. legislators to defeat this bill just as I contacted the Mass. legislators before the bill was stalled there. An earlier post, by someone else, referred to the bio father's concerns as being "mute." How telling. The correct spelling is "moot" (no longer relevant as an issue) Or did the person really mean "mute?" (without a voice)

I am anti-abortion. Still, I fail to see the connection between safe havens and killing a child in utero. The abortion argument is odd because Roe v. Wade held that, after the second trimester of pregnancy, the state's interest in the child was superior to the mother's right to privacy. Abortion opponents now opine that extending the mother's right to privacy beyond the birth is the cure to everything. No matter what the argument in favor of safe havens is, the question still remains as to how, except for anonymity, safe havens concerns can't be dealt with adequately through conventional adoption.

The ignorance througout these posts about what our constitution stands for is disgusting. One main purpose for our constitution is to protect the rights of the minority from the power and will of the majority. Thus, the Constitution was not set up in view of those "most" fathers who have abandoned the mother, but in contemplation of those who have not abandoned the mother.

Last month, an unwed man e-mailed me saying that his girlfriend was pregant by him and, aided by her strict Catholic father who did not want the family to be shamed, went out of state to avoid him. The e-mailer told me that the girlfriend threatened to relinquish the child to a safe haven should he pursue any of his rights, which he wants to do. He asked me for advice. What am I supposed to tell him--that he is moot? Or, "Well, you obviously did something to make her run away from you?" Or, "If you had been more supportive to the mother, her dad wouldn't have felt shamed?"

Some argue that SHs protect mothers from shame or stigma. This makes little sense. The shame associated with out-of-wedlock pregnancies has rapidly diminshed in the last twenty-five years. With few exceptions, it is only the Christian right who insist the stigma stay there. The shame and stigma will be gone soon if we just let the trend toward that disappearance continue. That is the best way to prevent mothers from wanting to abandon their children in the first place. In that sense, safe haven anonymity does not protect certain people from being psychologically eradicated by stigma, but protects the stigma from being psychologically eradicated by the people.