AKRON, Ohio - A 3-pound baby girl drowns in a toilet and is dumped in a high school restroom trash can.
Another newborn girl is thrown out with the trash and discovered in a landfill.
Both discarded. Both dead.
These and other tragic tales of baby abandonment are prompting child welfare advocates, prosecutors, hospital officials and lawmakers in this area to create havens where distraught new mothers can bring their newborns and walk away, no questions asked.
Last month, Stark County's Mercy Medical Center became the first organization in Northeast Ohio to pick up the cause, when it announced the creation of its Secret Safe Place for Newborns.
New parents can leave their baby in Mercy's emergency room without fear of criminal charges, said Christopher M. Dadlez, Mercy's president and chief executive.
The babies must be unharmed and less than 72 hours old.
Dadlez called the program "a safety net" for newborns who would otherwise be abandoned or worse.
"We believe that through this program, two lives can be saved: the life of the baby and the life of the mother, who can be free from guilt and prosecution," he said.
Babies left at the hospital will be given a wrist band with a number and placed in the custody of Stark County Children Services.
The mother also will be given the number, in case she wants to anonymously share information or change her mind.
The program's start coincided with Respect Life Month, which was celebrated last month by Roman Catholics and other anti-abortion advocates nationwide.
Mercy Medical Center is owned by the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine Health System and University Hospitals Health System.
"We really care about what happens to these babies," said Sister Nancy Hendershot, congregational leader for the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine. "We care for these young ones who can't care for themselves."
In a survey of news reports, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that 105 infants were abandoned in public places in 1998. Of those babies, 33 were dead.
At least two abandoned newborns have been discovered in Stark County in recent years.
In 1992, a teen-ager left her dead 3-pound newborn girl in a bathroom trash can in Glen Oak High School, near Canton. The county coroner declined to rule the baby's death a homicide, so the teen-age mother was only charged with failing to report the death.
Last year, a bulldozer operator discovered the body of a 6-pound newborn girl in the Countywide Landfill near the Tuscarawas County line. The mother was never identified.
"I would never want to see, with this program in place, a police report in the news that they found another body," said Sandy Moore, nursing director of Mercy's emergency department.
Stark County prosecutor Robert Horowitz said although he won't charge anyone who brings unharmed newborns to the hospital, he will continue prosecuting those who abuse their babies.
Summit County prosecutor Michael Callahan said he's working with Children's Services and hospitals to start a similar program in Summit within the next several months.
"Are we better off saving the kid's life, or should I be prosecuting some young mother or some young father for a homicide charge?" Callahan asked.
Mercy Medical Center modeled its program after one started by a television reporter in Mobile, Ala., about two years ago. Eight newborns have been dropped off at hospitals there.
Critics say the programs encourage people to thwart the established adoption system.
Most havens, including Mercy's, strongly encourage but don't require mothers to anonymously share medical history.
Bastard Nation, a nonprofit civil rights organization for adoptees, refers to the havens as "baby dumps."
"We certainly do not support baby abandonment or baby killing," said Marley Greiner, a Columbus resident and co-founder of the group. "We're just looking for a better way to do this. We're concerned with identity rights. This strips the infants of any kind of medical history, genetic history."
Others question the effectiveness of havens.
Twyana Davis, 24, of Columbus, served a year of house arrest for abandoning her newborn in a trash bin at Ohio Dominican College in Columbus in 1996 after delivering the baby girl in her dorm room.
She has regained custody of her daughter, Danielle, and volunteers with groups that offer counseling to distraught pregnant girls and women.
Haven programs aren't the answer, she said.
"I'm definitely against it, only because I think it promotes infant abandonment," she said. "In my situation, I think if I would have had someone to talk to, it would have made it a lot easier to tell someone. I don't think that in my mind state, after delivering a baby, I would have been conscious enough to think, `Oh, let me take it to the hospital.'"
But in some cases, the programs could save lives, said Dr. Phillip J. Resnick, a professor of psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland who has studied the issue of newborn homicides.
He has found that newborns are often killed by young women who hid their pregnancies and cannot face their parents. If these women know about another way to keep their secret, they might not kill, he said.
Mercy Medical Center plans to distribute brochures about the program at area high schools and colleges.
Ohio lawmakers are debating a proposed law that would establish havens at hospitals, police stations and emergency medical service agencies statewide.
