In her blue, jail-issue uniform, Matisha Goens, 28, appeared in Domestic Violence Court last week, her head down and her voice barely audible.
Her alleged crime? Leaving her 8-month-old daughter at a South Side police station, wearing a pink jacket and wrapped in a Winnie the Pooh blanket. Officers found the baby New Year’s Day, taking in all the activity from her stroller.
Though the girl appeared well cared for, she is beyond the age in which parents can relinquish babies anonymously and without fear of prosecution, causing some to wish for more discretion and others saying that support, not legislation, is a better way to address abandoned children.
On Jan. 4, Goens was arrested at her Chicago home in the 7000 block of South Crandon Avenue and charged with misdemeanor child neglect. In September, Goens was picked up on a similar charge when police allegedly found the same girl — now with her father — alone in a car at a Department of Motor Vehicles facility.
“On one hand, this child is well past” the legal limit of one month, said police Lt. Laurel Bresnahan, part of a Special Victims Unit on the case. “On the other hand, we see kids who have been hideously abused … and this is exactly what you want a parent to do.”
But where to draw the line? Do you praise or punish a mother who shows that the all-consuming task of parenthood is beyond her capabilities? And does charging Goens with a crime undermine the goal of the Safe Haven Law, which is to prevent babies from being abandoned on a doorstep or a trash bin?
“She had doubts during her pregnancy,” said Goens’ mother, Delores Scott Goens. “She didn’t know if she could do this … and talked about adoption. But I thought things would get better once the baby was born.”
The joy that usually accompanies a new arrival didn’t happen for Matisha Goens, an unemployed pharmacy technician described by her mother as “loving, giving and respectful” until her mid-20s. That’s when the young woman started exhibiting signs of mental illness. She had mood swings and delusions, which became darker and more frequent during her pregnancy, her mom said.
After Ava Arie was born, Matisha Goens grew increasingly isolated from her family, refusing to answer the phone or the door at her South Shore apartment.
“I feared for both my daughter and my granddaughter,” her mom said.
All states have “safe haven” laws that allow a parent to leave a child at a designated place — such as a hospital, fire or police station — to keep babies from being abandoned in places such as parking lots and bathrooms. But the legislation also has generated controversy, with experts split over age limits or even whether such well-intended laws help desperate parents.
On Jan. 1, the age limit in Illinois rose from seven days to one month before penalties would be imposed.
Bresnahan, for one, wondered whether Goens was confused about the recent change in the statute, thinking that she was acting within the penalty-free period. At the very least, the lieutenant would like to see more flexibility on whether to proceed with a criminal charge, she said.
“Life is not black and white,” Bresnahan said. “An arrest doesn’t serve anyone in this case.”
Dawn Geras, who started the Save Abandoned Babies Foundation, a Chicago nonprofit, argued for leniency for Goens.
“What is the crime here?” she said. “The mom showed loving, responsible action (leaving her at a police station). If the child had been abused … then she should be prosecuted. But what has she done other than cry for help?”
Prosecutors, though, are “duty bound to enforce the laws as they are written,” said Andy Conklin, spokesman for the Cook County state’s attorney’s office.
While the state did review the case for a felony, “given the circumstances, we felt that the misdemeanor charge was more appropriate,” Conklin said.
There are multiple reasons that someone would abandon a baby — from poverty to mental illness — and weighing help to distressed parents against legal consequences is one of the “greatest challenges” facing child welfare officials, said Kendall Marlowe, spokesman for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.
Still, that doesn’t mean that safe haven laws should be broader, he said.
“Otherwise we’ll have a Nebraska on our hands. We want to strengthen and support families — not encourage parents to give up their children.”
In July 2008, Nebraska became the only state that included children older than 1 year under its safe haven law. Four months later, 31 children — 17 of them teenagers — were dropped off, showing that without a cut-off date, states will be swamped with kids. Legislators later set the age at one month.
In Illinois, 53 children have been dropped off legally since the safe haven law took effect in 2001. Of the 58 babies abandoned illegally since 2001, 28 died, according to the Save Abandoned Babies Foundation.
In 2003, the Donaldson Adoption Institute, a New York-based research group, released a report that found safe haven statutes — nonexistent until a decade ago — may cause more harm than good, encouraging women to conceal pregnancies and abandon infants who might have been placed with relatives or for adoption.
Delores Scott Goens doesn’t know if her daughter was aware of the recent change in the law, but she would like to see the age limit raised to one year, to help new mothers who are overwhelmed.
She’d also like to see Ava Arie remain with her father, but with some kind of joint custody arrangement for her daughter, who will remain in jail at least until her next court date Tuesday.
Whatever happens, she is certain that prosecution is not the answer.
“What she needs is treatment … and to accept that she has an illness.”
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