Forty years ago, Leigha Curry was left to die as a newborn. Now she’s sharing her journey with the news outlet that first broke her story in 1982 to raise awareness about six other babies, abandoned in Houston over the last three months.
Curry was abandoned as a newborn by her mother at the Williams Middle School in Northwest Houston, where she was discovered by students and rescued, according to ABC13. Curry has since visited that school. Describing how it felt to be at the spot, she said, “It was very difficult for me.”
It is also difficult for Curry to hear of the six babies who have been abandoned in Harris County, Houston, in just the last three months. Two of the infants, who were found in the same week, are dead.
“To see that, it was emotional for me, because that could’ve been me,” Curry said.
On June 15, a Harris County family discovered a newborn girl on a walking trail. The baby, now called Emmelie Grace Doe, is living with a foster family.
On June 25, a mother dropped her newborn in a donation drop box. The woman believed to be the infant’s mother and the infant were taken to a hospital.
On July 21, an 18-year-old woman gave birth to her son in a taco truck, then tied him in a trash bag and placed him in a dumpster. Passerby called 911 after hearing the baby’s cries from the dumpster.
On July 22, a father abandoned his two-month-old daughter behind a dumpster in Harris County.
On August 14, a baby boy was discovered, dead, at the bottom of a trash compactor in Harris County. His umbilical cord was still attached. Police tracked down the infant’s mother, who said she panicked and threw her son in the trash when he was unresponsive shortly after birth.
On August 20, a baby girl of African American descent was discovered by a lawn crew, dead in a ditch, in front of a Houston concrete industrial plant. She was partially clothed, and her umbilical cord was still attached.
People are horrified by these gruesome, repeated instances of infant abandonment, including Curry. According to ABC13, Curry said she understands that mothers abandoning their children suffer trauma themselves and she “doesn’t hold any malice” against her own mother, who was never brought to justice. However, seeing the abandoned babies, Curry calls on leaders to take immediate action on this issue.
“Now is the time to start having these conversations. It is too many,” Curry said.
All 50 states and Puerto Rico have Safe Haven laws, which allow parents to leave their infants at secure locations confidentially. Many states have even installed Safe Haven Baby Boxes attached to first responders’ centers like fire stations, where parents can surrender their infants.
Many babies have been saved because of these laws and centers. However, infants continue to be abandoned by their parents at an alarming rate in the United States, as is seen in the recent Houston cases. This suggests that word of Safe Haven laws and Safe Haven Baby Boxes still needs to spread.
On a deeper level, hearts and minds must change. Adults must accept the value of each human life, no matter how new that life is, and resist the throwaway mentality of the current culture of death.
