Safe Haven laws exist in every state to protect newborn babies from abandonment by allowing their parents to bring them to a designated location surrender them to authorities, no questions asked. Abby Rose, one of the first babies surrendered under Illinois’ Safe Haven law, is grown up and speaking out.
Rose was born in January 2005, but she doesn’t know where she was born or to whom she was born. “I wasn’t born in a hospital,” she told Students for Life of America (SFLA), “but I was dropped off at St. John’s Hospital when I was maybe a day old. I was covered in dried blood and wrapped in a towel when a woman dropped me off.”
News reports from that day say that Rose was dropped off by a woman who described herself as a friend of the baby’s birth mother. The baby girl was showered with gifts and attention by hospital staff, who named her Janice Rose.
“So many people wanted me,” she said. “A line that abortion supporters often use is that the baby would be better off aborted than living, but that’s not the case. So many people wanted me, and that’s the same situation for many babies who need a loving, adoptive family.”
Rose was adopted by a couple who had been dealing with infertility. They were on a waiting list to adopt and received a call regarding Rose on the night before her mother’s birthday, said SFLA.
“So many people can’t have their own children, so giving someone an opportunity to have a baby and give them a great life is the best possible option,” Rose said. “I have a friend who got pregnant in high school and wasn’t planning to. When she told me she was going to get an abortion, one thing I told her changed her mind: “‘I could’ve been aborted. We could’ve never met.'”
Her friend decided to keep her baby and has since given birth, all because of the decision Rose’s birth mother made to protect her baby’s life.
“I’ve always been so thankful to my birth parents even though I don’t know them and know nothing about them,” expressed Rose. “I’m so thankful they gave my parents the opportunity to be parents.”
