] LOS ANGELES (AP) -- All too often, the ring of Debi
] Faris-Cifelli's cell phone means there is another
] abandoned newborn at the morgue, another forsaken child
] for her to name and bury in a shoebox-size coffin under a
] white cross in the California desert.
]
] The money could not come at a better time for
] Faris-Cifelli and her Garden of Angels, the tiny cemetery
] in the town of Calimesa where she has buried dozens of
] tiny children whose mothers didn't hear -- or didn't care
] -- about California's safe-haven law.
]
] Under the 2001 law, parents have three days to abandon
] infants without fear of prosecution. California is one of
] 46 states with such a law.
]
] Faris-Cifelli helped win passage of the law and has made
] it her life's work to spread the word that scared and
] confused parents should drop their newborns at firehouses
] and hospitals -- not in trash cans and alleys. She
] lobbies in states without such laws, talks to teens and
] police and has attended 12 trials of mothers accused of
] abandoning their infants. She also lays the dead to rest.

This story is really amazing. I had no idea that that kind of charity still existed or that there were laws like that in existence. The money certainly couldn't have gone to a more deserving person.

The cause, too, is worthwhile, however I can't help but wonder how much more/less effective a campaign for birth control methods (and NOT, thank you Bush, archaic abstinence) would be.

-janelane

CNN.com - Baby rescuer hits $27 million lottery - Dec 7, 2004