safe haven baby boxes

As more states pass abortion bans, an approach offering parents an alternative is gaining popularity. Baby boxes, which are built into the side of fire stations or hospitals, allow people to surrender infants anonymously.

Indiana's 86th baby box, where newborns can be anonymously surrendered, is open in Elwood.

The nonprofit Safe Haven Baby Boxes opened its 59th and 60th baby boxes statewide Wednesday in Martinsville and Franklin.

The boxes have proliferated slowly since the first in 2016 costs are about $10,000 to install despite staunch opposition to them under then-Gov. Mike Pence.

Monica Kelsey created Safe Haven Baby Boxes in 2016 after learning she was abandoned as an infant, and after seeing a baby box in operation at a church in Cape Town, South Africa. Today, there are 25 Safe Haven baby boxes in three states.

Baby boxes are padded, climate-controlled boxes where people can leave newborns safely and anonymously at hospitals or firehouse.

A new law that went into effect July 1 allows fire stations staffed 24 hours a day to install baby boxes.

Linda Znachko, founder of He knows Your Name Ministry, says she has the funding for a baby box. She's just waiting for the go-ahead.

For the second time in five months, an infant has been left in a baby box at a northwestern Indiana volunteer fire station.

A baby was discovered Sunday evening in a Safe Haven Baby Box in Coolspring Township, just outside of Michigan City.