This really upset me when I first heard about it, and it upsets me now.

Georgia doesn't have great Safe Haven laws, but we do have some laws. A parent wishing to relinquish their newborn can give the child up within a week of birth to a hospital or a health department without being charged. California has the best Safe Haven laws - in fact, there's a woman there who runs a program called Garden of Angels. Don't go Googling that unless you REALLY want to cry. This lady started the program after seeing a news story about a newborn who died after being flung out onto the highway - the parents were never identified, and so she contacted local authorities and arranged for the child's burial. Today, she has a foundation that does this, and that works with hospitals, churchs, fire and police deparments to coordinate safe haven programs for newborns. And she still runs the burial program - they name the infants, bury them, and give them markers.

Instead, some poor soul wiped their baby down...their baby who still had the umbilical cord attached, placed it in a bag, and placed it on the side of the road...hoping that someone would hear, maybe, or see the bag, and find the child...and now the child is dead, and buried in an unmarked pauper's grave. Someone who didn't know any better, who didn't have access to a doctor, or to a hospital, or who was afraid and did the only thing she could think of. What does this woman...or girl...or child, even feel like now? She has to know that her son is dead, and what does she feel? She wanted someone to find him, she wanted someone to take care of him (unwanted children end up in dumpsters, in trash cans, not carefully placed on the sidewalk). How much fear did she live in that this was her only option?

I can't say enough about educating everyone, of any class, of any racial group, of any immigrant status, about their rights in this country. I can't believe this small child had to die, I just can't.