Cannot afford raising children? Send them to Nebraska!

- Last Wednesday, a Nebraska man who has a history of unemployment, eviction notices and unpaid bills dropped nine of his children at a hospital legally under the state's safe haven law.

Nebraska just passed the law in July after years of lawmakers' attempts making it the last state that allows parents to legally abandon their children in hospital or police department without prosecution.

Gary Staton dropped five boys and four girls ages 20 months to 17 years at Creighton University Medical Center's Emergency room and then walked away. The man still keeps his tenth child, an 18 year-old daughter, according to the Associated Press.

The 34-year-old father said he was overwhelmed and he couldn't take care of all children without his wife around. His wife died a year and a half ago from a cerebral hemorrhage.

Staton told KETV-TV "I was with her for 17 years, and then she was gone. What was I going to do? We raised them together. I didn't think I could do it alone. I fell apart. I couldn't take care of them."

He was quoted as telling KETV "I hope they know I love them" and"I hope their future is better without me around them."

The children have been placed in foster care waiting for the courts to decide what should be done with them, media reports.

A spokesperson for the State Department of Health and Human Services said Sep 27 some family members had already offered to help. The children will be placed in the next few days after officials finish background checks.

The children's maternal grandmother talked to state officials and said the family will keep the children.

In addition to the Staton's family, five other families also left five children since Sep 13. An 18-year-old boy turned himself in Tuesday at a hospital in Grand Island Nebraska, Omaha World-Herald reported.

Since the enactment of the state's safe haven law, 18 children have been sent to the designated the "Safe Haven" in the state.

All states in the US now have safe haven laws intended to protect unwanted infants. Parents can leave their babies or infants in a hospital or police department under certain conditions for instance within a certain period after birth.

Texas is the first state to enact safe haven law that allows "a parent or other person who is entitled to possess a child 30 days old or younger" to voluntarily leave the child to an emergency-care provider.

Nebraska is different in that not only does it pass the law as the last state, but also its law allows parents to abandon their children under the age of 19 years at any time.

The safe haven laws are not welcome by everyone. Adoption rights and child welfare advocates opposed the laws and they believe that it should not be so easy for parents to abandon their children.

Nebraska Children's Home Society, a not-for-profit organization that provides supports and services to children, opposed the safe haven law.

"Safe Haven laws are a way to circumvent adoption laws and have unintended consequences," Bob Brandt, executive director of Nebraska Children's Home Society was quoted as saying in 2004 in news reports. source>>>

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