Do Safe Haven Laws protect infants? A new report examines homicide rates.

Every state has a Safe Haven Law, designed to give desperate parents a safe, legal option to surrender a newborn instead of abandoning them. A new report has taken a hard look at whether these laws are actually doing their job by examining the rate of infant homicides across the country. The goal is to see if the existence of these laws correlates with fewer of these heartbreaking deaths. The report's specific findings on the homicide rate are not yet available, so we can't say what the connection is. This means we don't know yet if these laws are working as intended to protect the most vulnerable infants. The report serves as a crucial starting point for a conversation that every community needs to have about supporting families in crisis.