Elmont Online

Published 11:50 p.m., Thursday, December 1, 2011

ALBANY — If a woman has just given birth to an unwanted baby and she doesn't know what to do about it, New York state has a number she can call. The idea behind the decade-old Abandoned Infant Information Hotline is to prevent newborns from being abandoned — and possibly dying — by telling people there is a way to legally give up their infants if that's what they truly want to do.

The trouble: The hotline operates on a state civil service schedule. Call between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m., or on holidays, and you'll get a recorded message telling you, among other options, to call 911.

Two years ago, the state Office of Children and Family Services quietly cut back the hotline's operating hours to save money — and because of a lack of business.

Since the hotline opened 10 years ago, it has received about 100 calls per year. Also: "No one who was about to abandon a baby has called the hotline since it started in 2001," OCFS spokeswoman Susan Steele said in an email.

Still, news that the hotline uses a recorded message was disturbing to human services advocates. A hotline, by definition, is for people in immediate distress, they said.

"We would consider that a problem," said Christine Deyss, executive director of Prevent Child Abuse in New York. "Certainly when there are people in crisis. ... It's really important to get a person."

"This is just incredible to me," said Marley Greiner, co-founder of Bastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights Organization, which advocates on behalf of adopted people.

Her group is critical of the current state of abandoned-infant laws, but she nonetheless said the idea of a recorded emergency line makes no sense.

"You'd think they can have a 24-hour hotline, for pete's sake," Greiner said. " ... They wouldn't dare do that with a suicide hotline."

"That's insane," said Tim Jaccard, president of Children of Hope, a Long Island-based volunteer group that also runs a hotline for parents who are at risk of abandoning a baby.

Children of Hope's volunteer line is set up in a way that people are available to talk with troubled parents 24 hours a day.

A retired ambulance paramedic, Jaccard pushed for New York's "safe haven" law in the late 1990s. At the time, many states were adopting such measures following a spate of horrific baby abandonment cases in Texas.

Safe haven laws work on the notion that people would be less likely to abandon to simply dispose of babies if they had a legal option to give the newborn away. All 50 states now have such laws, which generally allow people to drop off newborns at police or fire stations, hospitals and other designated places without fear of facing criminal charges. Social service agencies ultimately take custody of the babies and put them up for adoption.

Since its formation, Children of Hope has grown and now works nationwide through a toll-free number.

"We have all volunteers," said Caren Peet, a social worker and volunteer with the group. Several weeks ago, Peet handled an evening call from a distraught new mother in Wisconsin.

"She had nobody to turn to. She was hysterical, crying," said Peet, who directed the woman to a fire station to drop off her baby. Peet later made a follow-up call.

Jaccard added that his group gets thousands of calls each year, including hundreds in New York. They promote themselves in a number of ways, ranging from a page on Facebook to posting advertisements on ambulances.

Children of Hope has critics, including Bastard Nation's Greiner, who say there is scarce evidence that safe haven laws and hotlines have actually saved babies from being abandoned or killed.

"The people who are killing babies are still doing it," she said.

Just last week, a building superintendent in Manhattan's Washington Heights area found the body of a newborn girl in a garbage can in an alley. It was uncertain if the baby was born dead or alive but it was the latest example of the horrific fates that can befall some newborns.

Despite that, Greiner said she believes Children of Hope's hotline is working more effectively than New York's official service, given the state's limited hours.

"If they are going to have a hotline, I guess they should let Jaccard run it," she said.

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