Utah’s Safe Haven Law could be expanded to accept newborns up to 90 days old
Feb 19, 2025, 7:00 PM | Updated: Feb 20, 2025, 8:30 am
SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah law that allows people to surrender a newborn of up to approximately 30 days and younger to any open hospital could soon be extended to approximately the baby’s first 90 days of life.
An amended version of SB57, sponsored by Sen. David Hinkins, R-Ferron, was approved on the Senate floor Wednesday and will be taken up by the Utah House next. It would expand the Safe Haven law in Utah.
How Safe Haven laws work
Utah’s Safe Haven law, as currently written, allows birth parents or their designee to “safely relinquish a newborn child at a hospital… and retain complete anonymity, so long as the newborn child has not been subject to abuse or neglect.”
Hinkins’s bill would allow for infants up to 90 days old to be surrendered at a hospital.
The Safe Haven law in Utah was meant to help prevent child abuse or neglect by offering struggling or overwhelmed new parents an alternative. In addition to allowing for newborns to be safely surrendered, it also provides education and resources aimed at preventing abuse and neglect.
Every state plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico has a version of a Safe Haven law.
Read more:
- Utah lawmaker wants to add PDCD test to newborn screening program
- Annual report from Utah DCFS illustrates problem of child abuse, neglect
- You can now detect jaundice in your newborn with an app
