Abandoned baby in North Myrtle Beach: We shouldn’t compound a gut-wrenching tragedy | Opinion

I get why 21-year-old Britney Wheatle is sitting in a jail cell facing serious charges for abandoning her newborn baby. She placed her day-old daughter at the edge of a bush in North Myrtle Beach and walked away. That doesn’t mean she must be treated like a criminal.

The little girl was crying when 68-year-old Robyn Cain happened upon her, an act that likely saved the child’s life, or at least prevented harm from being inflicted upon her. Cain’s act prevented tragedy from becoming catastrophic, provided a little girl a chance to grow up healthily if the taxpayer-financed system in place plays its role well.

I get that the newborn could have been found in much worse condition, or too late. But that didn’t happen. And that’s why treating Wheatle like a criminal doesn’t make sense in the long run. Young pregnant women in distress and in dangerous situations in South Carolina can legally abandon their babies. Under the Safe Haven for Abandoned Babies Act, or Daniel’s Law, a person can surrender an unharmed baby up to 60 days old at a designated “safe haven” without legal repercussions.

The law makes sense. I was doing investigative journalistic work on the Department of Social Services when it was being adopted, including ensuring it would include a provision to track how often such abandonments occur. I was the first person to interview a young couple who had abandoned their baby in an Eckerd drug store in the Myrtle Beach area. Fortunately, abandonments remain rare in South Carolina, about four per year since 2009. That includes four babies legally abandoned this year through mid-July. It does not include Wheatle because she left her baby at the edge of a bush instead of at a hospital, fire station or other designated safe haven.

The law rightly specifies safe havens because the law is designed, above all else, to save babies. They will have a better chance of survival if taken to a church when someone is there or emergency room than in a bush or buried in a landfill the way the baby Daniel’s law was named after met his end.

I have no problem with the law, because in rare cases, it’s what’s best for the child. It’s their best chance for survival. Neither do I have a problem with the justice and child protective services systems deciding to uphold the that law. It’s just that in Wheatle’s case, though she did not adhere to the letter of the law, she clearly followed its spirit.

Her baby was unharmed and placed in an area in which someone was likely to see the newborn, or hear her the way Cain did.

And it’s not clear Wheatle, here on a work visa from Jamaica, knew the particulars of the law, or that legal safe havens were available, or where. She apparently was “dazed,” “confused” and a little “lost” when she went back to work at Walmart after walking away from her baby. Those are not the markers of a true criminal intending harm.

The architects of the law made it clear their goal was not about punishing young parents who find themselves in distressed or dangerous situations, but rather only to give those little human beings new to the world a chance at a future. Wheatle’s daughter has that chance. There were no signs of abuse.

Of course things could have been worse. We could be mourning another Baby Boy Horry, who was found in a box inside a tote bag in 2008 on the side of S.C. 544 between Conway and Myrtle Beach. He didn’t make it. His mother, Jennifer Sahr, was given a 10-year prison sentence that was suspended to four, along with having to pay restitution to the coroner’s office.

But they weren’t. The baby found at the edge of a bush in North Myrtle Beach lives and has a chance to thrive. That’s the outcome we want. The way we handle Wheatle will help determine if those outcomes become more or less likely.