MICHELE NORRIS, host:

In the United States, abandoned babies aren’t left on founding wheels or in baby drop boxes. But in the past decade, 47 states have enacted so-called safe haven or safe surrender laws. The measures essentially permit a parent to turn over a child to designated authorities without facing charges of abandonment as long as there is no evidence of child abuse.

Diana Zuckerman is president of the National Research Center for Women & Families, and she joins us now in the studio to talk about the challenges around the safe surrender for abandoned children.

Diana, so glad you’re with us.

Ms. DIANA ZUCKERMAN (President, National Research Center for Women & Families): Great to be here.

NORRIS: First, why have so many states passed these laws? What’s behind this?

Ms. ZUCKERMAN: The motivating factor was that there were babies being left in dumpsters and toilets. It was very upsetting. And so one state responded, and after that the other states decided to do something, too. Obviously, it was a problem where you have particularly young girls who are trying to hide the fact that they had a baby and didn’t know what to do.

NORRIS: I was going to ask you about the profile. Generally, who relinquishes these children? Is there a standard profile?

Ms. ZUCKERMAN: I don’t know that we know that, because it’s not always clear. But usually, I think, these are young women, sometimes teenagers, sometimes they are girls who were able to hide their pregnancy for the entire pregnancy. Other times, somebody knew they were pregnant. But in any case, this was a baby that was not planned and not wanted, but was seen as perhaps a life- changing event that could destroy her life, or her parents would be upset or other family members would be upset. And so the goal was just to get rid of that baby and have as few people know about it as possible.

NORRIS: Diana, typically what happens when these safe haven laws are set in motion? Where are the babies dropped off? Who takes responsibility for the children? And then where are those children eventually placed?

Ms. ZUCKERMAN: A lot of times the babies are brought to hospitals, although that’s not the only place that can be a safe haven. Even a firehouse can be a safe haven. The states vary in terms of what they require. But in many states, the women do not have to give their name. However, in many states, the children have to be checked out to make sure that they haven’t been intentionally abused. And so, presumably these young women have to hang around for that. It’s not quite as anonymous.

I think that’s the big difference with Europe. It’s not completely anonymous here, although in some states the mothers do not have to bring the child in. They can give it to a priest, to a friend or anybody who’s willing to do it. But obviously for some of these girls and women, they don’t have anybody else to do it.

NORRIS: You know, that issue of confidentiality could be very thorny. It seems that the local jurisdiction might want to keep some sort of record, even if it shielded in some way, for family history or for medical history, or the like.

Ms. ZUCKERMAN: Of course, in the ideal world we’d want to know all of this kind of history: genetic history, history of diseases, other things. And I think that’s the compromise. If you want to have a safe haven where a completely desperate girl or woman can bring in a baby that she does not want, a baby who might otherwise be in a dumpster or tried to be flushed down the toilet, I mean, these are horrible thoughts. If that’s that goal - and that is the goal - then you have to compromise on having the father have a say in the decision, the woman’s or girl’s parents having a say in the decision. You’re compromising all of that to save the life of the baby.

NORRIS: You know, the issue of infant abandonment is as old as mankind itself. Europe is dealing with this in a very different way. As we just heard, founding wheels are found all across Europe, and Japan now is even planning to introduce a kind of baby drop box program in that country. Why not something like that here?

Ms. ZUCKERMAN: I think we’re ready for something like that here, at least in some states. But I think you can tell from the laws that we have that some states just feel very uncomfortable about it. Even if we didn’t have anonymous kind of drop boxes, we could still do more to make this an easier process, to make it feel more anonymous for those girls for whom that’s really important.

NORRIS: Diana, thanks so much for coming in. Good to talk to you.

Ms. ZUCKERMAN: Thank you.

NORRIS: Diana Zuckerman is president of the National Research Center for Women & Families.