Local ballot questions

[alonewiththemoon]

In case anybody is curious, the results of Massachusetts local ballot questions can be found here.

That catch-22 that I wondered about yesterday did indeed happen--people voted in large numbers to award parents equal custody rights in divorce cases, yet also voted for the baby haven plan which strips rights away from fathers. In other news, apparently the majority of Massachuttsians with the opportunity to vote on it are fine with legalizing marijuana.

Comments

[ayun.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure this is a fair question, but what leads you to believe that those who take advantage of safe haven legislation are doing so in defiance of a father's wishes?

My (admittedly not-well-informed) conception of the type of situation in which this sort of thing would happen isn't one in which there is conflict between parents over whether to raise a child or abandon it - I would think that in that case, a mother who would be capable of abandoning her child would probably be just as happy to hand it off to the father and never look back. I can't imagine anyone who isn't really freakin' desperate leaving their baby at the doors of an ER. Maybe there's some ways in which I'm still super naive - I'll concede that.

There is also, of course, the fact that safe haven laws condone a practice that already exists, so what benefit would come of voting against them for the sake of fathers, if either way babies get abandoned?

[alonewiththemoon]

I wrote a bunch about why safe haven laws trouble me in my journal yesterday. But my point about the father is that his consent is not needed to abandon his baby--the mother can show up at the safe haven and leave the baby anonymously and unilaterally. Now maybe in a lot of these cases the father either doesn't know or doesn't care about the pregnancy, but still, it doesn't seem right to dismiss his wishes out of hand.

Right now if you leave your baby at an ER, you will be prosecuted for abandonment if you are caught, but the child will be fine. The safe haven law is aimed at the mother in denial who hides her pregnancy and leaves the baby in the trash. I don't see the existence of a safe haven law changing that behavior, since it's kinda psychopathic to begin with.

[silas7.livejournal.com]

Is the father prohibited from claiming the child once it's been dropped off?

[alonewiththemoon]

Under a safe haven law? Not prohibited per se, but since the drop-off is completely anonymous, he'd have a hard time finding the baby and then claiming it, and if the baby had already been adopted by the time he found it, then what?

In the current illegal abandonment scenario, I'm sure the father could ask the state/sue for custody, once he could establish paternity.

[ayun.livejournal.com]

I read your entry yesterday!

I'm going to drop this, as I think I'm a little too punchy to think carefully about it, and we're probably ultimately in a bit of disagreement here.

But I wanted to make sure you knew that I read your entry yesterday! I read 'em all!

[dirtyknees.livejournal.com]

In other news, apparently the majority of Massachuttsians with the opportunity to vote on it are fine with legalizing marijuana.

I'm actually pretty happy that several states are decriminalizing marijuana. Though I don't think the feds will ever decriminalize it, it will have the effect of putting fewer people in jail on felony convictions, presumably because states' sentencing laws will change due to the decriminalization. Fewer people in jail on unnecessarily harsh felony convictions = more voters.

--Andrea