A humane society strives to protect the innocent. And with Daniel's Law, South Carolina strives to protect the most innocent people of all -- newborn babies.
Three years ago, the General Assembly passed that needed law, also known as the Safe Haven for Abandoned Babies Act, and then-Gov. Jim Hodges signed it. It mandates that a parent or parents who leave an unwanted newborn at a hospital or other medical facility will not be criminally prosecuted for child abandonment -- and will have their anonymity protected. The impetus behind the law was to minimize the chances that parents of unwanted babies no more than 30 days old would abandon their tiny offspring, as far too many have.
Three years later, Daniel's Law is paying dividends. As Dora Ann Reaves reported in Tuesday's Post and Courier, teenage parents of a 7-pound, 11-ounce boy born last weekend at Summerville Medical Center invoked Daniel's Law. Jackie Jenkins, director of the Dorchester County Department of Social Services, said that baby -- Joshua -- is the first newborn abandoned in the county under that law.
Wendell Price, DSS state director for administration and program support, said that the in-hospital birth of Joshua might ultimately file this case under parental-rights termination instead of the Safe Haven for Abandoned Babies Act. But regardless of the legal specifics of that case, the spirit of Daniel's Law was clearly at work here -- as it was last weekend when a person identified as the friend of a mother brought another baby to a hospital in Horry County.
This law's namesake lives, too, though he's now a 3-year-old known as Douglas. He got his original name from nurses who found the biblical story, "Daniel in the Lion's Den," an appropriate name source for a newborn who somehow survived four hours buried in an earthen pit infested by fire ants at an Allendale County landfill in September 2000.
And like the modern South Carolina story of Baby Daniel, the story of Baby Joshua shows that good people -- including adoptive parents -- are ready, willing and able to care for little ones whose natural parents are incapable.
We can only hope that more of those who find themselves unable to cope with the burdens of caring for a baby after bringing a new life to the world will realize that Daniel's Law gives them protection from accusations of abandonment and the opportunity to do the right thing by protecting the most innocent among us.
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