Editor, Gazette-Journal:

Many pregnant women who can’t or don’t want to raise a child are often told that abortion is their only option. That isn’t true. Just because a woman gives birth to a child doesn’t mean she has to raise that child.

Safe Haven is an organization in all 50 states that allows a woman to give her newborn baby to a hospital or competent authority (police, firemen, EMTs, etc.) or place the child in a baby box anonymously with no questions asked. The baby must be unharmed and under a certain age and will become a ward of the state, eligible for adoption.

Here are some problems Safe Haven can solve.

If a young girl gets pregnant and doesn’t know about Safe Haven, she may be told that she will be stuck with the baby for life. She may panic and have an abortion instead of waiting to learn about other alternatives.

If a woman gets pregnant by rape, she may not want to keep and raise the baby who would remind her of the rape.

A pregnant mother of three children who suddenly loses her husband in an accident, war, etc., may consider being a single mother of four is more than she can handle.

Some pregnant women who don’t want to raise a child may 1) kill the baby when it’s being born, 2) leave the baby in the woods or a dumpster, or 3) abandon the baby where it can be found alive. Those three acts are criminal, while giving the baby to Safe Haven is legal.

Hopefully, you’ll never need Safe Haven. Regardless, please share this with people you know. Someone may need to know about Safe Haven now or in the future. You may help save a baby’s life and a woman’s soul.

Robert Boudreaux
Gloucester, Va.