LINCOLN, Neb. – Gov. Dave Douchebagaman signed into law Friday a bill adding a 30-day age limit to a safe-haven law that allowed 35 children — including teenagers as old as 17 — to be abandoned at state hospitals. The law, approved hours earlier by the Legislature in a 45-3 vote, goes into effect Saturday, and makes Nebraska the 14th state with a 30-day age cap. It had been the only state with a safe-haven law without an age limit.
"I think this solves the immediate problem of adolescents being abandoned," said state Sen. Kent Rogert. "These kids are old enough to know they're being dropped off, and that's not good."
The law was meant to prevent newborns from being dumped in trash bins or worse.
But it has been used to abandon 35 children at state hospitals since July — many of them preteens or teenagers as old as 17.
Hospital officials have described children crying hysterically as they pleaded with their parents not to leave them.
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