USC Case Shows Limits of Laws to Save Babies

The case of Holly Ashcraft, the USC student charged with murder last week after the body of her newborn was discovered in a trash bin, has triggered new debate over the effectiveness of laws designed to protect unwanted infants.

California’s law, which allows mothers to give up unwanted children without fear of prosecution, went into effect in January 2001. In the nearly five years since then, 98 babies have been safely relinquished. But in that same period, through June of this year, 123 newborns were abandoned and found alive. No statistics were available on those who did not survive, according to the state.

“It is difficult to determine how effective the law actually is,” acknowledged Shirley Washington, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Social Services.

Ashcraft, 21, of Billings, Mont., was arrested last week after the baby boy’s body was found near her apartment north of USC. The body was discovered by a man, searching the bin for recyclables, who notified police. Police sources disclosed Friday that Ashcraft had been investigated in a similar case in 2004 but that no charges were filed. No body was found in that case.

Paul J. Wallin, an attorney for the young woman, said Saturday that a lockdown at the Twin Towers jail downtown, where she is being held in lieu of $2-million bail, had kept him from seeing her.

Her mother, from Washington state, and an aunt, an uncle and other relatives have met with her attorneys and are expected to remain in Los Angeles for now, Wallin said.

Police, prosecutors and several people acquainted with Ashcraft have said they could not explain, or understand, the circumstances that might have led her to abandon her infant, and did not know whether she was even aware of the law that might have helped her.

But several noted that a fire station, a designated haven under the law, was just two blocks from where the body was found.

“The whole thing is just so sad,” said Michael Jackson, USC’s vice president for student affairs. “Life is very precious, and there needs to be a resolution of the legal questions in the case, but Holly Ashcraft is also going to need help dealing with what she’s dealing with. There’s a human tragedy all around.”

“Safe surrender” laws are now on the books in 46 states. California’s version allows the mother, or anyone with legal custody, to leave an unwanted baby at any hospital or fire station within 72 hours of birth, with no questions asked.

But even proponents, while arguing that the laws are necessary, say it is hard to know for sure that they are working. California, like many states, does not have comprehensive historical statistics concerning abandoned babies, but there is no clear sign that the number is decreasing.

Last week, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger made permanent the California law, which was due to expire in January.

Even with its imperfect results, Washington said, the law does provide a desperate woman with a choice other than dumping her baby.

“The important thing to remember is that there is an alternative,” she said. “If you don’t want to keep a baby for whatever reason, in this case maybe because the girl was in college, the ‘safely surrendered’ law is a viable alternative to baby abandonment.”

Mothers who surrender their newborns are given a bracelet with an ID number in case they change their minds within a designated 14-day “cooling off” period and decide they do want to care for their child, Washington said.

The laws are popular with lawmakers and child advocates eager to protect the tiny victims of a crime that baffles experts and the public alike.

But some critics question whether the statutes reach the population at which they are aimed.

“The number of children being unsafely abandoned is not declining, although safe havens are filling up,” said Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, a New York-based adoption research and education organization. “Instead, we’re persuading women who never would have abandoned their babies to do so.”

The laws, Pertman said, do little to address the circumstances that would propel a woman to abandon or kill her baby.

“The women who do this are freaked out, in denial, suffering from postpartum depression or psychosis that would induce them to do this,” he said. “And they probably aren’t going to be reached by an ad campaign.”

Other experts say that the laws are effective in some cases but that education about them is not consistent.

Debbe Magnusen is the founder of Costa Mesa-based Project Cuddle, which runs a 24-hour hotline to help women who are concealing their pregnancies or considering abandoning their infants. In the last nine years, she said, the organization has helped 536 mothers who did not want their babies.

Magnusen, who spoke Friday night to a group of USC students who contacted her after the Ashcraft case became public, said universities are not always as receptive as they should be to the idea that students need to be educated about such laws.

“They have that idea that ‘It doesn’t happen here. It doesn’t happen to our students,’ ” she said. “Everybody thinks it’s always the poor girl that does this, and it’s not. It happens to rich girls too. It’s across the board.”

Magnusen said that someone once gave educational billboards to the organization but that the signs were donated with the idea of placing them in “needy areas.”

“My question was, ‘Why not near colleges and universities?’ ” Magnusen recalled. “That’s where you have girls who because of the stigma do not want to keep babies or tell anybody they are pregnant.”

USC’s Jackson said, however, that his university and many others try very hard to make sure that students have the information they need to make choices of all kinds, including those involving physical and psychological health. He pointed to the USC student health center, the university’s extensive counseling services, women’s support groups, confidential pregnancy testing, birth control information and a 24-hour emergency hotline, among other services.

He said university officials, saddened by the Ashcraft case, are reviewing policies and programs to see whether there was anything more the school should have done, or could do in the future, to connect with and help troubled students. But sometimes, he said, a student in crisis may simply forget about the resources, at school and in the community, that are easily available.

“When they feel they have no place to turn, that’s the time to take a breath and remember the things that are right there in front of them,” he said.