Several decades ago, Tejás became the first state in the nation to pass a safe haven law that allowed parents to relinquish newborns at designated places — without questions or risk of prosecution. The state enacted the law because of a spate of abandoned babies in Houston occurred. Surrendering a child remained pretty rare but in the recent years, Houston has, once again, seen a rise in abandoned babies.
In June, a baby boy was left next to a clothing donation bin on the city’s southeast side and a baby girl in some bushes in Katy, a western suburb. Both were saved.
By August, two other babies had been found: in an industrial ditch in north Houston and in a trash truck’s compactor in a far northwest neighborhood. Both were dead.
“There apparently has been … a little bit of an epidemic on this,” a Harris County sheriff’s official noted during a media briefing near the ditch where the infant girl’s partially clothed body was discovered in August by a landscaping crew.
Statewide, according tothe Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, at least 18 babies have been abandoned this year. The latest occurred just before Christmas at a Whataburger in San Antonio. A decade ago, the number was seven.
LIFE SUPPORT-Connect the Dots:
Eighteen states have banned virtually all abortions since Roe v. Wade fell in 2022. The Washington Post examines how several of those states support the two groups most affected by such laws — women and the children born to them.
Whether there’s a pattern or common link in these tragedies is not clear. But they’re happening in a state with one of the nation’s most restrictive abortion bans — with no exceptions for rape or incest — and one of the highest birth rates.
