- State Representative William Bruck introduced House Bill 5407 to allow special boxes to be installed where babies could be surrendered safely and anonymously.
- The boxes would be installed at Fire Stations across the state.
- Michigan's Safe Delivery of Newborns Law allows parents to surrender newborns no more than 72 hours old to hospitals, police, and fire departments.
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story)
"Our goal is to save little lives that otherwise may or may not make it to the next day," said State Representative William Bruck
State Representative William Bruck introduced House Bill 5407 to allow special boxes to be installed where babies could be surrendered safely and anonymously.
"It's a live baby dropbox bill that will allow government entities to install, at their own expense, live baby drop boxes at fire stations," Bruck said.
Right now, the state of Michigan doesn't have that.
Michigan's Safe Delivery of Newborns Law does allow parents to surrender a newborn that is no more than 72 hours old.
But, Bruck says there are a lot of steps that have to be taken during the process before the baby is adopted.
"Months and months and months of litigation and, you know, hardship on both the baby and the family or the individual that you know surrendered that baby," Bruck said.
Bruck says these boxes would alert first responders at fire stations like the Lansing Fire Department.
"The whole anonymous component of this. It causes me as a fire chief to pause. But I do understand that if it's part of the process that is something that would be built into the process." said fire chief Brian Sturdivant.
Lansing fire chief Brian Sturdivant says their firehouses are all safe havens for people who need care, assistance, and support.
But he says more details would need to be ironed out when it comes to this bill.
"Liability issues, the transfer of care issues, if there's a need for medical assistance. What does that look like? The chain of custody issues on the handoff of the infant to the proper authorities. We would need a lot more information in all of those areas and in some other areas before we would feel 100% comfortable."
Chief Sturdivant also says the fire system here in Lansing is very busy.
"There is no guarantee that there would always be a responsible party or firefighter that would be in the fire station when there would be a need," Sturdivant said.
If this bill is passed the chief says they will do their part to be prepared and roll out the necessary training to serve the community as always.
"We're talking about a human life. This cannot be taken lightly. And then we have to ensure that we define exactly what the process will look like from A to Z in order for us to really feel comfortable." Sturdivant said.
The bill has been assigned to committee, but has not yet come up.
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