It’s been 24 years since Wisconsin first adopted its safe haven law that allows parents to surrender a newborn to a safe location, with no questions asked so long as the baby is no more than 72 hours old.
Since 2012, a total of 224 infants have been surrendered under the law in Wisconsin, according to the state Department of Children and Families. Now, a group of lawmakers wants to give parents up to 30 days after birth to drop off a newborn.
“Three days, that might not be enough time for a mother to decide for sure whether or not they want to give the baby up,” said Rep. Rick Gundrum, R-Slinger, who introduced the bill last week.
As it stands, a parent can safely and anonymously surrender their unharmed newborn to a law enforcement officer, EMS provider, firefighter or to a hospital without fear of prosecution or punishment within the first 72 hours of the child’s life.
The goal of the legislation is to bring down the number of infant fatalities involving neglect or abandonment, Gundrum said. Attention on the issue of infant abandonment was renewed after the 2023 death of a newborn boy in Whitewater whose parents left him in a field.
“This just will, I would hope, prevent those types of things from happening,” Gundrum said.
Wisconsin passed the first iteration of its safe haven law in 2001 — three years after Texas passed the first infant surrender law in the country. Ages at which an infant can be surrendered differ from state to state.
“I looked into it and found that states vary from like Wisconsin (which allows) three days to North Dakota, which is 365 days,” Gundrum said.
The two years with the highest number of infant surrenders coincide with the time abortions were banned in Wisconsin, between a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and a Dane County judge’s ruling that reinstated access to abortion care up to 20 weeks of pregnancy.
In 2022, the year the Supreme court overturned Roe, 29 infants were surrendered. In 2023, 27 were surrendered. In 2024, after Planned Parenthood resumed abortions in Wisconsin, there were 15 surrenders.
Gundrum said extending the period of time a person could surrender a newborn might incidentally decrease abortions, but that wasn’t the motive for his bill.
“It's for preventing infant fatalities by offering a safe and anonymous way for parents to relinquish their babies in crisis situations,” he said.
A total of 10 newborns have been surrendered in Dane County since 2020, according to the county’s Human Services department — two in 2020, two in 2021, one in 2022, one in 2023 and four in 2024.
Human Services confirmed that each of those reports originated from a hospital setting rather than a police department or fire station.
A spokesperson for the Dane County Sheriff’s Office recalled one instance in the last 10 years. The Madison Fire Department, which has 14 stations across the city, has no record of ever receiving an infant under the law.
“Knock on wood, we haven't had to go through this situation yet,” said Chris Hammes, assistant chief of medical operations for the Madison Fire Department.
The Madison Fire Department has not installed a "baby box" at any of its fire stations because it cannot guarantee trained staff will always be present, an official said.
Similarly, Madison Police Officer Anthony Vogel told the Cap Times he could not recall any instances of receiving a surrendered infant.
If an infant were to be dropped off at a Madison fire station, Hammes said EMS workers on site would bring the baby to the nearest hospital "just to be evaluated, be under care there, and then involve social work, so they could tie them into the county human protective services.”
Most hospital emergency departments are staffed with a social worker who would connect the newborn with child protective services, Hammes said. After that, the baby would eventually be placed in foster care or a pathway for adoption.
All certified sites for infant surrender — police stations, fire stations and hospitals — are required to notify county human services within 24 hours of receiving the infant.
The proposed bill would not change any other aspects of the state’s safe haven law and, ultimately, wouldn’t change anything about how a fire station, hospital or police department receives an infant who has been surrendered.
In 2023, Gov. Tony Evers signed a previous expansion of the law, allowing police departments, hospitals and EMS and fire stations to install safe haven baby boxes that allow for a parent to anonymously surrender an infant. Since then, four boxes have been installed across Wisconsin — one at the Elkhorn Area Fire Department, one at the Racine Fire Department, one at City of Reedsburg Ambulance and one at Howard Fire Rescue.
The Madison Fire Department decided not to install the “baby boxes” because some of its 14 stations aren’t staffed if crews are responding to a call — the 2023 law signed by Evers requires that all locations with boxes provide constant staffing, Hammes said.
Gundrum’s bill, Assembly Bill 237, has received support from 11 other Assembly Republicans and one Democrat, as well as two Republican Senate cosponsors. The representative feels confident the bill will receive bipartisan support.
Last year a similar bill passed through the Assembly with broad support from Democrats and Republicans but failed to pass the Senate by the end of the session. Gundrum recalls that session time simply ran out before the bill could advance, rather than the legislation being held up by any member of the Legislature.
Assembly Bill 237 has been referred to the Assembly Committee on Children and Families.
