Overreact Much?

Perhaps you've been seeing the news stories about the Nebraska law that allows parents to drop off their kids at Hospitals or Fire Stations, or some such public place, and basically abandon them, without fear of recrimination.

For myself, I have to say that I believe strongly in personal responsibility, if you have the kid, you are responsible to raise him/her. That being said, I understand what they were trying to do where, and I do, with some reservations, and somewhat tentatively, support the idea behind this law. I understand that idea of a young, and especially in the case of unwed, Mother, who has the baby, trying to do the right thing by her child, and finds out she can't handle it and doesn't know what to do. The idea behind this law was to give people in those situations a viable out, and keeping the safety of the child in mind.

The problem with what is going on in Nebraska of course, is that the law was very poorly crafted (gross understatement), and allowed parents of any minor children, even up to 17 years of age, being residents of Nebraska or not, to bring the child there and drop them off. Clearly, that's pretty stupid. Now that people have been bringing older children, and yes, even teenagers, from as far away as Georgia, just to get rid of them and dump them on the State of Nebraska, they have realized that maybe this wasn't be best idea in the world.

Clearly they need to do something to change the setup. The problem is that now, some moron in the Nebraska legislature has come up with the idea that they should change the law so that it only applies to kids that are up to 3 days old. But isn't that a gross overreaction? What about the young Mother, who this law was intended to help, who has the baby for two weeks, or two months, or six months, before she realizes that she can't give him/her the care they need? What are they supposed to do then? How many mothers do you think will decide within the first three days that they aren't equal to the task? So, we can save the ones that were going to get tossed into a dumpster on the day they were born, but that's about it. Of course, they are worth saving too, but I just think that cutting from 17 years to 3 days is a bit drastic.

This is the problem with Government solutions, they start out poorly crafted, and end up needing major revision, and instead get gutted to where the do virtually no good for anyone. We need some common sense, unfortunately, all to often, Government service attracts people with absolutely no common sense whatsoever.