Parents of abandoned newborn taken into custody:
21-year-old Harold Vermal O’Neal and an unidentified 17-year-old mother were arrested for leaving their newborn at a fire station. The problem was they left the newborn outside wrapped in a towel inside of a diaper box. When the baby was discovered its body temperature was at 88 degrees.
South Carolina’s safe haven law states that a baby can be left at a fire station but someone has to take physical custody of the baby.
I do lay partial blame on the parents for not being smart enough to realize that the baby could have died due to exposure but the safe haven laws from state to state are so varying it’s hard for anyone to that wants to safely give their baby to a safe haven to know what their states procedure is.
A federal safe haven law is needed and needed badly.
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