Reporting from Lincoln, Neb. — First Melyssa Cowburn’s 5-year-old child tried to bash in a baby’s head with a hammer. Then he set the shower curtain on fire. The next day he plugged all the sinks and toilets in their apartment and flooded the place.
Cowburn and her husband had tried unsuccessfully to get their insurance company to pay for mental health treatment for the boy. The difficulty she had keeping him under control had already helped drive her to attempt suicide last year. Now she felt she had only one option: She flew with her child to Nebraska last week and tearfully left him there.
This state has become notorious for being the one place in the country with a law whose wording allows parents to abandon children up to age 18. Its unique safe-haven law — which was intended to let parents leave unwanted infants at hospitals without legal consequences — took effect in September, and since then 35 children have been abandoned, almost all of them 11 or older.
After twelve years with a child that you conceived and raised, I can’t imagine what kind of monster you have to be to look them in the eye and say “I’m driving you to Nebraska to abandon you. I don’t want you anymore.” Awkward car ride aside, it really does kind of make me sick to think about.
