Contact: Jeff Barbosa
(916) 319-2020

SACRAMENTO - Assembly Majority Leader Alberto Torrico’s (D-Newark) bill to give a parent up to seven days to drop off a baby at a designated safe surrender site unanimously passed the Senate Judiciary Committee on a bi-partisan 5-0 vote. 

Assembly Bill 2262 incorporates recommendations made by a recently concluded state audit that was conducted after a request by Torrico last year.   The audit found many problems with the safe surrender law primarily because no agency felt it had authority to administer it.  AB 2262 will improve data collection, reporting and monitoring, all problems found in the state audit.  It will direct the Department of Social Services to oversee it.

“We are going to put the life of the baby above everything else,” Torrico told the committee.

Currently under the law, a parent can drop off a baby up to 72 hours old to a designated safe surrender site.  The mother and newborn are given identical I.D. bracelets and the parent has 14 days before their parental rights expire.  There is no criminal liability enforced on a parent  for safely surrendering their child.

Torrico’s bill would allow a parent up to seven days to drop off their baby.  The extension is to not only target mothers who have hid their pregnancies, but also mothers who may be suffering from post partum depression or experiencing other barriers preventing them from safely surrendering their child under the deadline.

Since the law went into effect, 218 babies have been safely surrendered, but 400 have been abandoned.

AB 2262 easily passed the Assembly 69-7 and the Senate Public Safety Committee.  The bill is supported by the California Professional Firefighters, California Medical Association, California State Firefighters Association, California Police Chiefs Association, California Psychiatric Association, California Catholic Conference, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, District IX, League of California Cities and other organizations.