{"id":329448,"date":"2025-04-11T16:40:19","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T21:40:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=329448"},"modified":"2025-04-15T01:04:47","modified_gmt":"2025-04-15T06:04:47","slug":"anti-life-elitists-destroy-safe-haven-boxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/anti-life-elitists-destroy-safe-haven-boxes\/","title":{"rendered":"The anti-life ‘elitists’ fighting to destroy safe haven laws and baby boxes\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Across the nation, multiple state legislators are utilizing talking points and narratives provided by abortion-minded professionals and radical activists who are coordinating efforts to stop the expansion of <\/span>Safe Haven laws<\/span><\/a> and<\/span> Safe Haven Baby Boxes<\/span><\/a> (SHBB). Tragically, these extremists are seeing some success.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to<\/span> Safe Haven Baby Boxes<\/span><\/a>, as of February 2025, there are over 300 boxes across 20 states with “cutting-edge technology,” including a “temperature-controlled, ventilated, and padded bassinet, designed to ensure the baby’s safety and comfort.”\u00a0<\/span>SHBB founder Monica Kelsey claims that <\/span>over 200 babies<\/span><\/a> have been saved by the baby boxes program since its implementation in the U.S.<\/span><\/p>\n

Given this, it is important to know which organizations and leaders are behind this anti-lifesaving movement \u2014 and what their true motives are.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The voices opposing Safe Haven laws and Baby Boxes<\/b><\/p>\n

In November 2024,<\/span> a joint letter<\/span><\/a> was sent to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services calling for oversight of the baby boxes. The main signatures included <\/span>Lori Bruce<\/span><\/a>, associate director at Yale University, <\/span>Clara S. Lewis<\/span><\/a>, Senior Lecturer at Dartmouth College, and <\/span>Mark Mercurio<\/span><\/a> with the Yale University School of Medicine.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Shortly after, citing their own letter, the \u201cStrategic Working Group\u201d published a “<\/span>Legislative Report: U.S. Policy Responses to Infant Abandonment and Infanticide,” alluding to the idea that pro-life legislation and court rulings are consequently resulting in an increase in birth rates in some areas (as if rising birth rates is a bad thing), resulting in an increased risk of child abandonment, and thereby resulting in an increased effort to expand Safe Haven laws and baby boxes.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Lori Bruce, along with Clara S. Lewis and Mark R. Mercurio, also wrote a paper entitled “<\/span>Infanticide and Infant Abandonment: New Directions in U.S. Law and Policy,” published in the<\/span> American Academy of Pediatrics<\/span><\/a>, a publication with a policy statement of \u201cEnsuring Comprehensive Care and Support for Transgender and Gender-Diverse Children and Adolescents,\u201d and \u201c<\/span>The Adolescent\u2019s Right to Confidential Care When Considering Abortion<\/span><\/a>,\u201d<\/span> as previously<\/span> reported by Live Action News<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The trio has also teamed up with other abortion activist groups like<\/span> Bastard Nation<\/span><\/a> \u2014\u00a0an adoptee rights organization, whose founder, Marley Greiner, also launched<\/span> STOP BABY BOXES NOW<\/span><\/a> in an effort to track and defeat legislation expanding SHBB locations across the country. <\/span>Greiner was one of the signatories of the opposition letter authored by Bruce, Lewis, and Mercurio and sent to HHS. <\/span>Greiner\u2019s objectives are to promote abortion access, stop baby boxes, and<\/span> end the very existence of Safe Haven laws<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Source: Stop Baby Boxes Now, legislation tracking map<\/p><\/div>\n

Distorted worldview shapes professional opinions falsely presented as fact<\/b><\/p>\n

In a 2023 article in<\/span> The Progressive Magazine<\/a>, Bruce blames pro-life laws and the overturning of Roe v. Wade<\/em> as the reasons for infant abandonment, stating, “The legal landscape is shifting in alarming ways\u2014which traumatizes birth parents and children alike through <\/span>unwanted births <\/i><\/b>while feeding a profitable adoption<\/span> system<\/span><\/a>” (emphasis added).<\/span><\/p>\n

Bruce further claimed that the use of SHBB is evidence of women being “forced into pregnancy and childbirth” and that in places like Indiana the real issue is that women do not have access to birth control or abortion, arguing that the money Indiana has chosen to invest into expanding SHBB should have instead gone to so-called “<\/span>financed birth control<\/span><\/a>.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In a 2018 publication published by<\/span> Bioethics Today<\/a>, Bruce argued against the conscience rights of medical professionals \u00a0provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services <\/span>Conscience and Religious Freedom Division (CRFD), stating, “Patients belonging to LGBTQ populations as well as patients seeking reproductive health services (abortions, birth control, and vasectomies) or assisted suicide (where legal) now face uncertain care.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mark Mercurio<\/span><\/a>, co-director of the Program for Biomedical Ethics and director of Yale Pediatrics Ethics Program, often cites the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute (Planned Parenthood’s former “special affiliate” and research arm) as a “<\/span>great resource<\/span><\/a>” and frequently leads <\/span>panel discussions with colleagues<\/span><\/a> who described pregnancies without abortion access as “forced pregnancies” with deadly consequences, and presented religious traditions’ historical condemnation of abortion as “part of a patriarchal system of male control over women’s bodies.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Could it be that these individuals in this coordinated effort perceive baby boxes and Safe Haven laws as a threat against their blatant anti-life personal views?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Nonsensical circular arguments against life-saving devices<\/b><\/p>\n

Similar to narratives that claim “<\/span>adoption is not a solution to abortion<\/span><\/a>,” proponents against SHBB proclaim, “‘<\/span>Baby Boxes’ Aren’t a Solution to Roe’s Repeal<\/span><\/a>,” stating that the use of Safe Haven laws and SHBB are too traumatic for the child and the parent.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In her testimony to the Connecticut State Legislature<\/span> opposing Senate Bill 1310<\/span><\/a> (which would have granted authorization to hospitals to install baby boxes in emergency departments), Lori Bruce states, “We know from the extensive work by Gretchen Sisson, an adoption scholar, that women who relinquish their children suffer from unrelenting grief.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“Adoption scholar<\/em>” Gretchen Sisson<\/a>? The same<\/em> Gretchen Sisson who<\/span> is lead investigator for ANSIRH’s (Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health)<\/span> Abortion Onscreen program<\/span><\/a> which tracks abortion’s representation<\/a> in media? ANSIRH, funded by the<\/span> Packard Foundation<\/span><\/a>, which Live Action News previously reported trains abortionists<\/a> and helped<\/span> to fund the abortion pill’s<\/span><\/a> manufacturer,<\/span> Danco<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There is nothing more traumatic and final to preborn children and their mothers than the well-documented truth of life-ending, violent abortion procedures for which Bruce and her colleagues consistently advocate.<\/span><\/p>\n