Tue, Oct 7, 2008 (2:06 a.m.)

Nevada and 48 other states had adopted “safe-haven” laws when Nebraska finally followed suit in July. The laws permit a parent, usually a desperate single mother, to leave an infant at medical or public safety facilities without fear of being arrested.

The purpose of such laws is to end the tragedy of unwanted babies’ being placed in trash bins or abandoned in equally unsafe places.

Nebraska’s legislators, however, according to a story Friday in The New York Times, passed a safe-haven law that went well beyond the others by protecting parents of children up to age 19.

Last month, the paper reported, 15 children ranging in age from 1 to 17 were dropped off by parents or guardians at hospitals in the Nebraska cities of Lincoln and Omaha. Their caregivers, among them an impoverished single dad who dropped off nine of his 10 children, said they could no longer bear the burden of raising the children, some of whom they claimed were unmanageable.

The legislator who sponsored Nebraska’s law says dropping off unwanted kids like that takes advantage of good intentions, and he is working toward changing the law’s language.

That any parent would take such action with older children prompted the newspaper to dig deeper. It found that in this day of foreclosures, high unemployment and parental despair over dim prospects of ever earning anything but a low wage, many more families than usual are in turmoil.

It also interviewed experts who noted the dwindling opportunities for families to receive the type of services from state and local governments that could turn their lives around.

With the national economy now reeling, more pressure than ever will come to bear on social service agencies in Nevada and other states. Governments must prepare for this challenge and be determined to meet it. What happened in Nebraska must not be allowed to become a national trend.