There’s another heartbreaking case of potential infanticide, this time in the state of Arizona. News reports indicate a baby girl with her umbilical cord still attached has been found on the front yard of a home in Arizona.
When discovered, the baby carrier sat on top of the irrigation box in their front yard, covered with a sign.
Roseanne McCulloh and her son thought about contacting authorities when they saw it Tuesday morning but decided to investigate first. Roseanne said her son removed the heavy metal that had been placed on top of the carrier and “jumped back about 20 feet” with shock when he discovered a newborn baby lying inside.
Roseanne said she gently removed the wet blankets and cloths wrapped around the tiny girl and found the umbilical cord still attached. The family called 911 and tended to the newborn before the Mesa Fire Department arrived.
Upon being found Wednesday around 11 a.m., the baby was quickly transported to hospital and is doing well. She appeared to be just hours old. A Mesa police spokesman said at a press conference that “things were still moist and damp from the birthing process.”
Click here to sign up for pro-life news alerts from LifeNews.com
Local police officials released the following statement:
On March 8 around 11am, we received a call from someone who had found a newborn baby girl in their backyard in the area of Alma School and 9th Place. The baby, whom has been named Baby Jane, was in a baby carrier and appeared to be hours old. She is a healthy full-term baby, Hispanic or Native American, 7 lbs. 8 oz., 50cm in length. If anyone has any information, including info about possible parent/s, please contact us at 480-644-2211, choosing option 2 from the menu.
“I touched her and she moved and I said, ‘She’s alive!’ ” Roseanne McCulloch told KNXV-TV. “I picked her up, and [the blanket] was all wet.”
McCulloch added: “She was a big baby. She was gorgeous. And whoever left her had already taken off the mucus, the membrane, off of her. I feel so bad for them because they must be in a situation where they felt they couldn’t continue to keep caring for the baby.”
As the press conference, Mesa police Det. Steve Berry asked the public to speak out if they know anything about the parents of the baby.
“We’re hoping that someone knows a person who was pregnant, and today they’re not, and there’s no baby around,” he said. “We certainly think that someone out there knows who the mother of this child is.”
The abandonment is particularly odd since Arizona has a Baby Safe Haven law. That law gives new parents 72 hours to drop off a newborn at a hospital, fire station, adoption agency and some churches without fear of prosecution – anonymously, with no questions asked – if they feel they can’t take care of it.
