This year in July, Nebraska lawmakers have managed, after much debate, to pass a safe haven law that allows parents to abandon children up to the age of 18 in medical centers so that the state to take on the responsibility of taking care of them until they come of age.

Nevertheless, at that time, nobody had foreseen the proportion of parental abandonment that the coming into effect of the law would trigger.

Over the past few weeks, numerous children have been dropped off at state-certified hospital in Nebraska, the case that has drawn the most attention being the one involving Gary Staton, an out-of-work man who lost his wife in 2007. Stanton, father of 10, feeling unable to further cope with his overwhelming parental duties, decided to leave 9 of his children (five sons and four of his daughters) at the Creighton University Medical Center.

Recently, Nebraska newspaper reports have revealed that several of the abandoned children have been dropped off at hospitals because of their violent behaviour that parents could not deal with anymore, after every method they had tried had turned out to be to no avail.

For example, an 11-year-old boy who had threatened to kill his mother and his siblings has been turned in to a medical center by his family, as a last resort, since he had refused to take his medication while under psychiatric care at another hospital.

Currently, lawmakers are considering revising the safe haven law so that its language clearly states the maximum age of children who qualify for state care, since the word “child” has given rise to much confusion, leading parents and guardians to believe that it refers to any minor child. The law was initially intended to protect infants from parental abandonment.