Baby Moses Law Safe Haven Public Comment by Russell SiasSave haven baby laws are sometimes referred to as "Baby Moses Law." (Shutterstock)
Three babies were dumped and left to die in Texas in 1999 — the year everything changed.
That was the moment lawmakers decided America needed a better answer than a trash can.
Utah built that answer — and this week, one of the first babies it ever saved stood up and thanked it.
The Man Who Was Never Supposed to Make It
His name is Sam Peterson.
He is 24 years old.
He is an engineering student at Brigham Young University who loves the outdoors and has a family that
adores him.
He also came into this world through a hospital door, left by a birth mother who drove in from another
state to find a place that could help her.
She had no name attached to what she did.
She had no charges fled against her.
She had a law that said: leave your baby here, and we will take care of him.
That law turned 25 years old this week, and Sam Peterson stood at a Utah Department of Health and
Human Services commemoration and said something the abortion industry does not want you to hear.
"I believe this law was a blessing to everyone involved," Peterson said. "It was a blessing to my
parents, who were finally able to welcome a child into their family, it was a blessing for me because
I was raised by parents who love and support me through everything that I do — and while I don't
know my birth mother, I hope it was a blessing to her as well."
His adoptive parents had waited eight years to have a child.
They had given up.
Then the phone rang.
"I honestly just feel like it was planned, it was perfect, I fit right in," Peterson said.
That is what a pro -life law looks like when it works.
Safe Haven Laws Have Saved 5,068 Babies Since 1999
Texas passed the first Baby Moses law in 1999.
Utah's newborn safe haven law followed in 2001, passed by then -state Rep. Patrice Arent.
She had heard the stories — babies found in restrooms, in dresser drawers, in dumpsters — and
decided a mother in crisis deserved a better option than desperation.
She pushed the bill through its first year, over objections from people who worried it would create a
drop-off zone for babies.
She was right. They were wrong.
Every single U.S. state now has some version of a safe haven law. The Charlotte Lozier Institute
reports that 5,068 infants have been safely relinquished under these laws since 1999. Infanticide rates
dropped 66.7% in the decade after safe haven laws spread nationwide.
Those are children who lived.
And that is just what we can count.
Arent said the state doesn't track how many babies were saved through referrals, resource connections,
and outreach that happened alongside the law itself.
"We don't know how many babies were saved, because we've saved them in so many other ways,"
Arent said. "We just want the babies to be alive, to end up in these safe, loving homes."
Sam Peterson's Grandfather Had One Thing to Tell the Woman
Who Saved His Grandson
Arent was at a courthouse not long after the law passed when she spotted Sam Peterson's grandfather
celebrating with his family.
He pulled her aside and told her his grandson was alive because of her law.
She has never forgotten it.
"Even if only one life had been saved under this law, I see the huge impact from just this one person,"
Arent said.
Sam Peterson's adoptive mother, Heather, said it was "a miracle" when the call came.
Because a woman she has never met made the hardest decision of her life, a family was created.
"Because somebody knew where to go and that she had a place to turn, and because there was a legal
and compassionate option for her, our family was created," Heather Peterson said.
Then she said something directly to that unknown woman.
"I don't know anything about what it took for you to get to that hospital and to make that decision, but I
am so grateful for the courage that you showed. Your son is loved, he has thrived, he has been given
opportunities in this life."
Right now, pro -abortion activists are fighting in state legislatures across the country to gut every
alternative to abortion they can find.
They know what Sam Peterson knows.
When a mother has a real option, abortion loses.
Safe haven laws are that option — and 25 years of proof is standing at a podium in Salt Lake City telling
the world he is grateful to be alive.
Sources:
Emily Ashcraft, "Grown safe haven baby shares story as Utah law commemorates 25 years,"
KSL/Deseret News, June 2, 2026.
Charlotte Lozier Institute, "Safe Haven Laws: A Primer," Lozier Institute, October 30, 2025.
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