HOBBS, New Mexico (LifeSiteNews) — New Mexico firefighters retrieved the first infant ever to be dropped off in a recently-installed “baby box,” a temperature-controlled incubator designed to receive babies whose mothers are unable to care for them.
Baby boxes have become an important pro-life resource enabling moms in crisis situations to safely and anonymously relinquish their newborns in accordance with state safe haven laws that allow people to drop off unharmed newborn babies at secure locations, like fire or police stations or hospitals.
In the early morning of Saturday, September 23, Fire Station One in Hobbs, New Mexico, received an alert indicating that their new baby box had been activated, local outlet KRQE reported.
“This is a great day for the community of Hobbs, New Mexico. With all the tragedy that’s been going on with these types of incidents in New Mexico, this is a great day,” Hobbs Interim Fire Chief Mark Doporto told the outlet.
The second box of its kind in radically pro-abortion New Mexico, the Hobbs baby box was installed in May, just a week after teen mother Alexis Avila was sentenced to 18 years in prison after she put her newborn baby in a bag and threw him in a dumpster in the same southern New Mexico community in January 2022. The crime was caught on surveillance cameras, and Avila’s baby was retrieved by three people searching through the garbage, The New York Post reported. Police transported the baby boy to the hospital, where he was reportedly listed in stable condition and survived.
In response to the horrific incident, Hobbs, New Mexico, partnered with “Safe Haven Baby Boxes” to install a box in which mothers can surrender their babies – from newborns to three-month-old infants – safely and anonymously, in accordance with state law.
RELATED: Baby boxes save countless lives. This group wants to expand to ten more states
Now, months later, the box, which is safe, temperature-controlled, and locks once used to protect the baby from being taken or injured by anyone outside, has provided sanctuary for its first surrendered infant.
“The Hobbs Fire Department is very proud and happy to have a serviceable baby box for our community, and we’re even more happy that a brave and courageous person decided to make the right decision and put this baby in the baby box,” Doporto said.
According to KRQE, firefighters transported the baby, whose gender and age have not been made public, to the Covenant Health Hobbs Hospital for assessment and medical treatment. Per the outlet, the “Hobbs Fire Department said the baby is well, and that the box served its purpose.”
Firefighters said they would place the infant in the custody of New Mexico’s Children, Youth, and Families Department (CYFD).
Hobbs spokesperson Meghan Mooney hailed the box as “a huge benefit to all at-risk mothers” who sometimes don’t have “support from family” or “community.”
“[W]e want them to have a safe place for their child to be cared for if they feel that they are not able to do so,” she said, according to KRQE.
The baby box is a crucial pro-life resource in New Mexico, where abortion is legal with no gestational limits, mandatory waiting periods, or requirements for parental notification.
And it’s not just useful in New Mexico. Baby boxes are saving lives across the country and providing alternative, life-affirming options for moms who cannot raise a child and might otherwise look to abortion.
As LifeSiteNews reported, the first baby to be saved thanks to a West Ocala, Florida, safe haven box was adopted in July by the firefighter who found her and his wife, who had been struggling with infertility for almost ten years.
“I picked her up and held her. We locked eyes, and that was it. I’ve loved her ever since that moment,” firefighter Vincent, who asked that his last name be withheld for privacy reasons, told Good Morning America.
RELATED: Baby girl abandoned in Florida safe haven box adopted by firefighter who rescued her
In August, LifeSite reported, a fourth baby was given a chance at a loving home thanks to the installation of a Safe Haven Baby Box at Carmel Fire Station in Indiana.
More information about Safe Haven Baby Boxes, including their exact locations across America, can be found at the organization’s website. More information about safe haven laws, resources, and other types of safe haven locations can be found at the website of the National Safe Haven Alliance.