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Wed Nov 19, 2008 at 02:04:26 AM CST
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| Earlier this year, Nebraska became the last state to adopt a safe haven law that allowed parents and guardians to abandon their children without fear of prosecution. We were, however, the first state to adopt such legislation without a defined limit on the age of the children who could be abandoned under the law. That's drawn considerable national attention over the last few months after the law took effect and dozens of minors (most in their early teens) were left at hospitals across the state.
Now, as you probably know, the Nebraska Legislature is in the middle of a special session called by Gov. Dave Heineman with the sole purpose of amending the law to place a cap on the age of children eligible for safe haven protection. Heineman first indicated that he favored the law applying only to newborns in the first 72 hours of life, but he's since shown willingness to accept a safe haven that extends throughout a babies' first 30 days - perhaps even through its first year.
The dilemmas raised by this whole situation have been numerous and ugly. The one thing they all have in common is that they've made Nebraska look very bad. Unfortunately, most of the mockery and scorn has been directed at our state legislature. That's extremely unfair, especially since it was Heineman who signed the bill into law and who later delayed in calling a special session while the situation grew into a genuine crisis.
Of course, it's unfair to point a finger at any one person for a bill that passed the legislature with only one dissenting vote. But, Heineman gave the final go-ahead and hasn't been held to account in the sligthest - even though he admitted to its flaws upon the bill's signing on February 13th, 2008.
Gov. Dave Heineman signed the state's safe haven bill late Wednesday morning, though he said he has some misgivings about the broad nature of the Nebraska measure....
"Yes, I am going to sign it. Yes, I have some concern," Heineman said during a Wednesday morning news conference. "We have decided to expand beyond infants."
But senators can make adjustments to the law in future years if problems develop, he said.
This wasn't some unforeseen consequence. Heineman recognized the possibility that we'd see precisely what came to pass, and he signed the legislation anyways. Every time one of those children has been dropped off, it's been Heineman's safe haven in action. |
| Kyle Michaelis :: Does Dave Heineman Deserve Blame For The Safe Haven Debacle? |
| Recognizing that so many parents and guardians could be brought to such a desperate act as abandoning their children, Heineman might have embraced this incredible responsibility he'd helped thrust upon the state. Instead, his only focus has been personally avoiding the political consequences without any apparent compassion for the suffering and frustration that have become increasingly evident in so many Nebraska families.
As for that one true voice of dissent against the safe haven bill, it belongs to the only true winner in this horrible situation - term-limited State Senator Ernie Chambers. Here's what he had to say weeks before Heineman signed the legislation into law:
Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers, who has opposed the bill all along, and even filibustered it, said he "made a deal with the devil" on the compromise to "more or less get out of the way" of its passage.
"I don't like society putting its stamp of approval on women abandoning their babies," he said....
The bill does not deal with the underlying causes of child abandonment, he said.
"What is it in a society that will make a young woman feel so desperate that she can not hold on to what may be the most important thing in her life?" he said. "Those she should be able to turn to for sustenance and nurturing may be the ones who come down on her the hardest."
Young women should be made to know that a baby is for life, he said. Society has the obligation to address these issues in such as way that she does not think automatically that the way out of a difficult situation is to throw her hands up and abandon her child, he said.
You might argue that Chambers failed with his decision not to filibuster the safe haven legislation in the 2008 session as he had the year prior. But, he chose different battles in his last year, and the outcome here only adds to Chambers' reputation. His foresight and sharp intellect have been without peer in Nebraska politics for decades, but it's his clearly-defined and principled positions that will be the most missed since we'll no longer have such a measure against which others' obvious failings might be judged.
Chief among those is Heineman, who should be able to throw around his weight a lot more in Chambers' absence. If anything, this example should serve as a cautionary tale to the entire state of what we can expect if there's no one in the legislature standing up to Heineman and challenging the go-along-get-along attitude of the prevailing status quo. |
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