INDIANAPOLIS, Nov. 14 (UPI) -- An Indiana woman says she was overwhelmed by her son's problems and trying to get help for him when she left the 8-year-old at a Nebraska hospital.
A friend who has been acting as a spokeswoman for Stephanie Mote, told the Indianapolis Star that the 30-year-old woman did not want her son to become a ward of the state of Indiana. But the boy, like other out-of-state children dropped off by parents trying to take advantage of Nebraska's safe haven law, has been returned to his home state.
"She didn't abandon him. She just wanted to get him help," Rhonda Shea said Thursday. "She didn't feel he'd get the help he needed in the state of Indiana."
Nebraska, the most recent state to adopt a law aimed at protecting newborns by allowing parents to leave them at hospitals, police stations or firehouses with no questions asked, did not include an age limit. As a result, more older children than babies have been left at hospitals, including at least four from other states.
"Struggling families across the country have seen the Nebraska safe-haven law as a ray of hope," said Richard Wexler of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform.
The Nebraska Legislature has begun a special session to adopt an age limit.
