As we labor to protect life in our state, we seek creative and innovative solutions that help moms and dads in crisis and protect life by providing compassionate solutions to those in need. This legislative session, we helped pass 2025 Wisconsin Act 94 which saves lives by expanding Wisconsin’s “Safe Haven” law.
What Are Safe Haven Law?
Safe Haven laws allow parents to anonymously surrender unharmed infants to hospital staff, firefighters, and police officers without fear of prosecution for abandoning their child. Between 1999 and 2008, every US state enacted some form of Safe Haven law. Wisconsin passed its first Safe Haven law in 2001 allowing parents to surrender their newborns within 72 hours of birth. Following surrender, the newborn receives medical attention, if needed, and becomes a ward of the state with hopes for a future adoption into a loving family.
This month, Governor Evers signed 2025 Wisconsin Act 94 into law. This act expands the length of time that parents may surrender their children from 72 hours to 30 days. Senator Rob Hutton, author of the bill, said, “Safe Haven laws are proven to save lives. Extending the age to 30 days ensures parents in crisis have more time to make the right decision for their newborn baby and will save more lives. I’m grateful for all the support this legislation received throughout the legislative process and the cooperation of all stakeholders who helped ensure this proposal was a bipartisan success.”
While, ideally, we wish to enable parents to raise their own children, reality shows us that some parents do not love and care for their children as they should. Every year babies are cruelly abandoned and left for dead. Often, by the time they are found, they have already died. While pregnancy resource centers throughout our state offer support and assistance to parents in need, sadly, some parents reject this offer of help. Safe Haven laws provide a last resort option that gives children the opportunity to live rather than to die alone and abandoned.
Baby Boxes
A crucial life-saving aspect of Save Haven laws is the addition of baby boxes. South Korean Pastor Lee Jong-Rak installed the first “baby box” in his home in 2009 after finding an abandoned baby on his doorstep. Since 2009, this incubated box has saved thousands of babies in Seoul from abandonment and death.
Since then, baby boxes have spread around the world as a compassionate and life-saving option for parents in crisis. Monica Kelsey’s own story of abandonment inspired her to bring this life-saving innovation to America. Kelsey founded Safe Haven Baby Boxes in 2015 to raise awareness about Safe Haven laws and to help facilitate the installation of baby boxes in the United States. In the last decade, Safe Haven Baby Boxes has helped install over 400 baby boxes throughout the United States.
In 2023, Governor Evers signed into law an expansion of Wisconsin’s Safe Haven law that allows police departments, hospitals, and EMS and fire stations to install baby boxes. Parents may choose to anonymously drop off their infants in these boxes. Since then, a total of seven hospitals and fire stations have installed Safe Haven baby boxes in our state.
photo credit: Safe Haven Baby Boxes Facebook
A Baby Saved in Wisconsin
Just last October, the first baby was saved in a Wisconsin baby box. Fire fighters rescued a baby girl from the Safe Haven box located at Racine Fire Station Four.
“This mother’s decision was not abandonment—it was an act of love,” said Monica Kelsey, founder and CEO of Safe Haven Baby Boxes. “She chose life. She chose safety. She chose hope.”
We are thrilled to be a part of this life-saving legislation that offers life to the most vulnerable. In the years to come, we hope to see more baby boxes installed in our state and more parents choosing life for their babies before and after birth.
The work of Wisconsin Family Action is possible because of generous friends who partner with us financially and in prayer. If you value the work WFA does, we invite you to invest in this unique work that is all about you, your family, your faith, your freedom, and your future! As always, we welcome and covet your prayers.
