Overview
- Monday’s 25th‑anniversary event in Salt Lake City featured Sam Peterson, an adoptee left at a Utah hospital under the law, who credited the statute with giving him his life.
- The law lets a parent anonymously leave an infant at a hospital without prosecution and directs the Utah Division of Child and Family Services to place the child for adoption.
- Utah’s statute is hospital‑only rather than including fire stations, and the allowable age for surrender has expanded over time to about 90 days after birth.
- Sponsors say the law began as a response to babies abandoned in unsafe places and was passed with bipartisan support from Patrice Arent and John Valentine.
- Officials and advocates stress they cannot produce a precise count of lives saved, so they are pushing public education to reduce stigma and increase awareness of the option, which could prevent future dangerous abandonments.