Nebraska's safe haven law for children focuses on only infants now

As reported in the L.A. Times:

Nebraska on [November 21] closed a loophole in a controversial law that had allowed parents to abandon children as old as 18 at hospitals. The unicameral Legislature voted 43 to 5 to make abandonment legal only for infants up to 30 days old. Gov. Dave Heineman signed the emergency bill [the same] afternoon, and it takes effect [November 22].

Nebraska's law had been controversial for nearly three months as people from Nebraska and across the country abandoned their children in that state. Some children were as old as young teenagers. Now, the state's law is more in keeping with its original intent and that of similar laws around the nation, which is to protect infants when a desperate (and often very young) parent feels compelled to abandon the baby.

However, Nebraska's recent experiences show that parents of children of all ages can become desperate in the face of economic, health, and behavioral difficulties. Desperate even to the point of abandoning the children. A related story in the Times included this quotation:

[C]hildren's advocates as well as parents . . . say the state has done nothing to address the problem exposed by the safe-haven law: desperate families quietly struggling to raise mentally ill children with little help from the government. "There are parents like me who really need help," [one parent] said. "I don't know how to help him. I don't know what else to do."