Safe-haven law in the context of Parental responsibility (criminal)

Child abandonment is the practice of relinquishing interests and claims over one's offspring in an illegal way, with the intent of never resuming or reasserting guardianship. The phrase is typically used to describe the physical abandonment of a child. Still, it can also include severe cases of neglect and emotional abandonment, such as when parents fail to provide financial and emotional support for children over an extended period (sometimes referred to as "throwaway" children). An abandoned child is referred to as a foundling (as opposed to a runaway or an orphan). Baby dumping refers to parents leaving a child younger than 12 months in a public or private place with the intent of terminating their care for the child. It is also known as rehoming when adoptive parents use illegal means, such as the internet, to find new homes for their children. In the case where child abandonment is anonymous within the first 12 months, it may be referred to as secret child abandonment.

In the United States and many other countries, child abandonment is usually treated as a subset of the broader category of child abuse. (However, all 50 states and D.C. have laws allowing a parent to permanently surrender a child at a designated safe haven "where they will not be prosecuted.") In the United States it is punishable as a class 4 felony, and a second or subsequent offense after a prior conviction is a class 3 felony (see classes of felonies) with different state judicial systems treating it with varying severities and classifications. Child abandonment may lead to the permanent loss of parental rights of the parents. Some states allow for reinstatement of the parental rights, with about half of the states in the US having had laws for this purpose. Perpetrators can also be charged with reckless abandonment if victims die as a result of their actions or neglect.

Sister Mary Irene FitzGibbon (born Catherine Rosamund FitzGibbon; May 12, 1823 – August 14, 1896), commonly known as Sister Irene, was an American nun who founded the New York Foundling Hospital in 1869, at a time when abandoned infants were usually sent to almshouses with the sick and insane. The first refuge was in a brownstone on East 12th St. in Manhattan, where babies could be left anonymously in a receiving crib with no questions asked. The practice was an echo of the medieval foundling wheel and an early example of modern "safe haven" practices.

As the number of infants in care grew, the Foundling Hospital came to occupy a full city block between 68th and 69th Streets. In conjunction with her work at the Foundling Hospital, in 1880, Sister Irene founded St. Ann's Maternity Hospital, at 13 East 69th Street.