Baby Box Bill: 'No Shame, No Blame, No Names'

An Indiana woman is making it her personal mission to save the lives of unwanted babies across the state through the use of a black metal contraption called a Safe Haven Baby Box.

Pro-life advocate,Monica Kelsey is supporting Indiana House Bill 1016 that would implement their use statewide, and it has already passed the statehouse.

Kelsey told CBN News the box would allow mothers to relinquish their baby to a police station, fire station, or hospital without ever showing their face.

**Watch Kelsey's interview with CBN News' Efrem Graham. She shares her personal story and explains why she is such a strong advocate for the baby boxes.

Under Indiana's current Safe Haven Law parents can give up babies that are less than 30 days old to the proper authorites.

"The law is already in place. The baby boxes (are) just an extension of this," Kelsey said. "The Safe Haven Law is doing amazing things throughout this country, however we'll still finding babies that are being abandoned."

"We say no shame, no blame, no names," she continued.

Kelsey stressed the baby boxes are a "last resort." Her passion for helping unwanted children comes from personal experience. In 1972 her biological mother became pregnant with her after she was "brutally attacked and raped."

"Even though abortion was illegal, my birth mother had still succumbed to the pressure of being pregnant, unwed, and carrying a child conceived through rape," she explained.

"And at the advice of her mother, which would be my biological grandmother, she found herself in a back alley abortion clinic," Kelsey added.

But her mother refused to have the abortion.

"She left and was hidden from the outside world until she gave birth to me, and abandoned me at a hospital two hours after I was born," Kelsey said.

Kelsey said she is grateful for her mother's decision, and wants to help other women who find themselves in situations like her birth mother.

Baby boxes are used in other countries. A new documentary, called The Drop Box, tells the story of how these boxes are saving the lives of unwanted children in South Korea.

Kelsey's first encounter with a baby box was in South Africa, while she was at a speaking engagement.

"In December of 2013 I had the chance to speak at the only church in Capetown, South Africa, that had a baby box," she said. "I was so intrigued with it."

After her trip she reached out to lawmakers about bringing baby boxes to Indiana.

"(The bill) passed the house unimously, 94 to nothing. We're very hopeful with it going through the senate the same way," Kelsey said. "Indiana wants to be the frontrunner for this."

If the Baby Box bill passes, the state would be the first in the United States to use them.