Governor Evers Signs Safe Haven “Baby Box” Bill

On December 6, 2023, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers signed Senate Bill (SB) 369 into law as 2023 Wisconsin Act 79. Act 79 permits the installation of newborn infant safety devices under Wisconsin’s safe haven law. Authored by both Sen. Joan Ballweg (R-Markesan) and Rep. Ellen Schutt (R-Clinton), SB 369 previously passed the Wisconsin Assembly on November 15, 2023, and the Wisconsin Senate on October 17, 2023. Pro-Life Wisconsin Legislative Director Matt Sande testified in support of the legislation before the Assembly Committee on Children and Families on November 1, 2023.

Pro-Life Wisconsin supports efforts to prevent the illegal abandonment of newborn infants, often resulting in their tragic demise, by offering ways to hand over newborns lawfully and safely to proper authorities. Enacted in 2001, Wisconsin’s current safe haven law, s.48.195, allows in-person, anonymous relinquishment of newborn infants 72 hours old or younger to law enforcement officers, emergency medical services practitioners, or hospital staff members. Act 79 enhances Wisconsin’s safe haven law by increasing the anonymity of the parent relinquishing his or her child. It does so by authorizing the installation of newborn infant safety devices, also known as “safe haven baby boxes,” in hospitals, fire stations, and law enforcement agency buildings and allowing a parent to relinquish a child under 72 hours of age in such a device. A “baby box” avoids the visible, face-to-face contact that might dissuade an otherwise willing parent from safely relinquishing his or her newborn child.

Act 79’s safety criteria governing the baby box itself is extensive. For example, a baby box located at a hospital or law enforcement agency building must be staffed 24 hours per day. Baby boxes located at a fire station must also be staffed 24 hours per day with an emergency medical technician onsite. Furthermore, the device must be physically part of the hospital, fire station, or law enforcement agency building, must be temperature controlled and ventilated, and must be equipped with an alarm system that automatically triggers an alarm inside the building when a newborn infant is placed in the device. Also, the device must be equipped with a surveillance system that allows employees of the hospital, fire station, or law enforcement agency to monitor the inside of the device 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.

With Act 79, fifteen states now permit both face-to-face and baby box relinquishment of newborns: Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Iowa, and Wisconsin. Safe Haven Baby Boxes of Woodburn, IN has had over 140 legal safe haven surrenders, with thirty-six babies having been surrendered in their baby boxes.

Pro-Life Wisconsin thanks Senator Ballweg and Representative Schutt for their dedicated work in passing this critical bill with bipartisan support, and we thank Governor Evers for signing it into law. Act 79 gives localities and new parents in crisis the option of safe haven baby boxes. We know they will save lives. In Jefferson County, WI, a newborn infant was left for dead last March in a field near a Whitewater trailer park. Perhaps if the mother had known of a baby box nearby in which to place her baby boy silently and anonymously, he would be alive today and she would not be facing charges in Jefferson County Circuit Court. We must do all we can to help prevent such awful and avoidable human tragedies.

Pro-Life Wisconsin celebrates the success of the safe haven baby boxes in other states, and we look forward to the installation of the first baby boxes in Wisconsin.

Taxpayer Abortion Subsidy Prevention Act

State Senator André Jacque (R-De Pere) and State Representative Elijah Behnke (R-Oconto) have introduced companion legislation, Senate Bill (SB) 300 and Assembly Bill (AB) 247 respectively, in the Wisconsin Legislature. Together these bills, entitled the Taxpayer Abortion Subsidy Prevention Act, would prohibit the use of public employees and public property for activities relating to abortion. Should legal abortion ever return to Wisconsin, either by judicial ruling or statutory enactment, it is critical that we have laws on the books that shield taxpayers from subsidizing the killing of their preborn brothers and sisters with their state tax dollars.

Strongly supported by Pro-Life Wisconsin, SB 300/AB 247 would do the following: 1) prohibit persons employed by the state, a state agency, or a local governmental unit from providing abortion services, promoting or encouraging abortion services, making abortion referrals, or training others or receiving training in performing abortions while acting within the scope of their public employment, whether located within or without the state; and 2) prohibit the use of public property to provide abortion services, promote or encourage abortion services, make abortion referrals, or train individuals in performing abortions, whether located within or without the state.

The Taxpayer Abortion Subsidy Prevention Act would outlaw attempts by University of Wisconsin (UW) employees to plan and erect abortion centers on public property, as occurred with the Madison Surgery Center in 2009 prior to the plan’s abandonment. It would also outlaw public funding of UW medical resident abortion training, and UW faculty performance of abortions at the Madison Planned Parenthood abortion facility, a grisly contractual arrangement that stained the reputation of Wisconsin’s public university system and its flagship hospital. Ob/Gyn medical residents can be effectively trained in addressing the complications of abortion without actually performing abortions.

Importantly, the bills’ prohibitions do not apply to a physician who performs a medical intervention designed or intended to prevent the death of a pregnant woman (i.e.; a medical emergency early induction or C-section and the removal of a miscarriage or an ectopic pregnancy) if the physician makes all reasonable medical efforts under the circumstances to preserve both the life of the woman and the life of the unborn child in a manner consistent with conventional medical practice.

Such a medical intervention is not a legal abortion because it does not involve: 1) intent to terminate the pregnancy; and 2) intent other than to increase the probability of a live birth, as defined in Wisconsin’s current law abortion statute, s.253.10(2)(a), included in the legislation. Therefore, any medical treatment provided to a pregnant woman by a physician that results in the unintentional injury or death of her unborn child is not a violation of the bills’ prohibitions. Abortion, statutorily defined as the intentional killing of a preborn child, is never medically necessary to save the life or improve the health of the mother.

Abortion is not health care. And in poll after poll, Americans overwhelmingly say they oppose taxpayer-funded abortion. A Knights of Columbus/Marist Poll released on January 18, 2023, showed 78% of respondents opposing the use of tax dollars to pay for abortions overseas and 60% opposing the use of tax dollars to fund abortions in the United States. The proposed Taxpayer Abortion Subsidy Prevention Act respects the consciences of Wisconsin taxpayers who oppose the use of public funds to subsidize abortion directly or indirectly. Pro-Life Wisconsin will fight for this legislation every legislative session until it becomes law.