Adoptee shares gratitude as Utah’s Safe Haven law turns 25 years old

SALT LAKE CITY — A law designed to prevent so-called “dumpster babies” is now 25 years old — and one of the individuals it was designed to save is now close to the same age.

Utah‘s Newborn Safe Haven law was designed to give pregnant moms a safe alternative where they could leave a baby they could not or would not be able to care for. The original sponsors of the bill say they don’t know how many children have been saved over the years, but one of them, Sam Peterson, was on hand to mark Monday’s special anniversary.

He said the law means everything to him.

“It is something that has given me my life! It’s my privilege to be a part of this law,” Sam said.

He stood next to his mother, Heather Peterson, who said she gets emotional talking about the law allowing her and her husband to adopt Sam.

“We feel like a miracle happened. We feel like you came to us in the most amazing way and you have an amazing story and we think it’s important that other people hear it,” she said.

Heather and Sam agreed that the Newborn Safe Haven allowed them to become a family.

It was a bill originally sponsored by former Utah Senator Patrice Arent a quarter century ago. Arent said she felt compelled to act after hearing too many stories about so-called “dumpster babies.”

“Babies that had been left to die in unsafe places like dumpsters or public toilets,” Arent explained, “Or even someone who left their baby in a drawer in their bedroom in Cottonwood Heights. I heard these stories and I just knew I had to try to find a way to provide a safe alternative.”

So Arent, a Democrat, worked with former Republican lawmaker John Valentine to sponsor and help pass Utah’s Newborn Safe Haven law.

Arent said it was a true bipartisan collaboration.

“It allows our birth parents to legally give up custody of an infant. It’s anonymous and it’s in a hospital. There will be no questions asked, and the baby then ends up in a safe, loving home,” she said.

Less than a year after the law went into effect, Sam’s birth mother left him at a Utah hospital. Heather said she and her husband adopted him three days later. Sam is now 24.

“We are living proof that Safe Haven works, because we didn’t know anything about his birth mom… It was like he just dropped out of heaven,” Heather said.

Sam said he is eternally grateful.

“It’s given me a family, it’s given me friends, it’s given me an opportunity to go to college. Day three, I was with my mom, and so she will always be my mother, and I will always cherish that,” he said.

Sam said he will be graduating next year from BYU with an engineering degree.