10 January 9 - 15, 2025 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents ▼ CHILDCARE MOSES IN TEXAS RISING BABY ABANDONMENTS IN TEXAS REVEAL LACK OF EDUCATION. BY ALYSSA FIELDS A s Texas’ stringent abortion laws continue to hold sway, a growing number of babies are being aban- doned in Texas. Experts say a lack of edu- cation is to blame for unlawful child surrender. “A lot of times [mothers are] just scared,” said Tiffani Butler, a spokesper- son for the Department of Family and Pro- tective Services (DFPS) that covers North Texas. “Their hormones, their emotions are ev- erywhere. They’re in shock. They don’t re- ally know what they just went through. A lot of times they just went through it by them- selves.” Reports of six illegally abandoned babies in just three months in Houston has brought the issue of unlawful child surrender back into the spotlight recently. Two of the babies were dead when discovered. In July, Houston police arrested Everilda Cux-Ajtzalam, a teen mom of one of the six babies. Cux-Ajtzalam, a Guatemalan citizen, gave birth to a baby boy in a parking lot, tied him in a bag and placed the bag in a nearby garbage bin. A passerby heard the infant cry- ing and he was rescued and placed in foster care. Cux-Ajtzalam said she had been raped by a family member and did not know she was pregnant until the third trimester. She has since been charged with felony aban- donment of a child. In 2022, just one abandoned baby was discovered in the Houston area. Since then, abortion policy has been more tightly con- trolled by the states, and the rate of aban- doned babies in Houston has increased 500%. “When the law changed, during the sum- mer was that first few months we had a 300% increase in hotline calls,” said Heather Burner, the executive director of the Na- tional Safe Haven Alliance (NHSA). The string of baby abandonings in Hous- ton is a repetition of history. After 13 babies were abandoned in the city in 1999, then- Gov. George W. Bush signed the safe haven, or Baby Moses, law. The law, the first of its kind and since adopted in all 50 states, allows parents to surrender their babies at designated safe spaces without facing criminal charges. Each state has separate stipulations, but Texas has some of the most liberal surren- dering rules. Cux-Ajtzalam would have had 60 days to surrender her baby at a fire station, an emer- gency medical service station or a hospital. Without identifying herself, the young mom could have handed the baby over, filled out a brief medical history and then relinquished her parental rights. The old trope of leaving a baby on the doorstep of a fire station without a proper handoff is illegal, and women who do so are subject to prosecution. Baby abandonments are often tied to low- income areas. Struggling young women with limited financial resources appear to be the likeliest to abandon a baby, but that isn’t al- ways the case. In November, a dead baby was discovered in a sanitation truck in Ellis County. The baby is assumed to have been picked up from a wealthy gated community in Ovilla. Burner says she’s helped women in every walk of life. “When we have so many calls from women that say, I wish I could keep my baby, but I can’t afford it because I have other children, that’s devastating to me,” said Burner. According to the DFPS, in fiscal year 2024, which ended on Sept. 1, nine babies were abandoned in the Dallas area. Five of those babies were abandoned through the safe haven law. “This is a health issue,” said Burner. “You don’t need to address all of the other pieces just to let someone know if there is a preg- nancy, that there are safe options and there are safe places to go. It’s pretty easy to put into a health curriculum.” Since September, only three babies have been abandoned through safe haven laws. A criticism of the bill passed under Bush is that it came with no funding. There was no campaigning about the new law, and signage at safe haven locations is still not required. “Many of the fire stations and hospitals don’t even have signs indicating that they are a safe haven provider,” said Buner. “We come from a position of almost failure.” To combat this, Patsy Summey spent 10 years working in Dallas trying to educate women and healthcare providers through Baby Moses Dallas, a nonprofit organization that spearheaded campaign work related to the issue. “It’s a choice for you and a chance for your baby,” read the posters that Baby Moses Dallas hung across the city. Burner agrees with Summey when she says women just don’t know it’s an option. “It’s really only when they hear about ba- bies being abandoned or found dead,” Burner said. “They’re found on someone’s doorstep, you begin to hear what safe haven is and what that law is. It’s really been a dis- service, I think, to women and families that are looking for safe alternatives.” Summey personally distributed informa- tion on safe haven laws at every hospital and fire station she could get to. She printed pamphlets in English and Spanish, and she spoke to firemen and nurses who didn’t know about the law. In 2015, Baby Moses Dallas stopped their outreach. The birthrate for teenagers dropped to a historic low, and baby aban- donments had been on a steady decline. But with stricter abortion laws and the educa- tional lapse caused by the pandemic, Sum- mey urges for someone to pick up where she left off. “We need to educate again,” she said. ▼ TRANSPORTATION END OF THE LINE SILVER LINE CONSTRUCTION, MORE BIG PROJECTS SET FOR COMPLETION IN 2025. BY EMMA RUBY T he orange traffic cone is so ubiqui- tous in North Texas that it could be named the region’s official flower. In 2025, though, several long-awaited Dallas developments will be trading their cones for ribbon cuttings. Causing road closures and, err, more road closures, Dallas’ ambitious construc- tion projects aren’t always appreciated while the work is underway. Once open, however, we believe projects like the DART Silver Line and the historic Forest Theater will prove to be beneficial to North Texans for years to come. This may be the year the wait is over for five Dallas construction projects — but we aren’t holding out hope that our city’s days of lane closures and dust clouds will be be- hind us. After all, when one construction project ends, those glowing, orange cones are sure to sprout up somewhere nearby sooner or later. The Forest Theater In late 2025, construction crews tasked with restoring the 75-year-old Forest Theater are expected to take a bow. Groundbreaking on the South Dallas theater revitalization took place last April thanks to the work of the nonprofit Forest Forward, which, in 2017, revealed a $75 mil- lion plan to reopen the monument. Originally built for a middle-class, white audience, the Forest Theater be- came a hub for Black entertainers and crowds after the construction of the South Central Expressway, now called the S.M. Wright Freeway. Despite hosting the likes of Tina Turner, Erykah Badu and B.B. King, however, the Forest’s curtain came down for good in 2009. By integrating the theater’s historic charm while addressing local needs — like mixed-income housing — through a broad neighborhood plan, Forest Forward is stew- arding a new life for the theater and its sur- rounding area. The project is planning a soft launch for December of this year, before opening at full capacity in 2026. Texas Behavioral Health Center at UT Southwestern Two-hundred beds for adults seeking men- tal health care are expected to open at the Texas Behavioral Health Center at UT Southwestern this summer. The facility, in Dallas’ medical district, marks the first state mental health hospital in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, made possible by more than $280 million ap- proved by the 87th Texas Legislature. A 92- bed pediatric unit will be added to the hospital in spring 2026. Officials say the facility will offer “much needed care” to North Texans amid ongoing concerns of a national mental health crisis. “The new hospital fills a great need in our community for more psychiatric hos- pital beds. I am proud to have worked on this project since the beginning of the 85th Legislature in 2017,” State Sen. Royce West said during the hospital’s 2023 groundbreaking. “I am particularly ex- cited that this facility will provide patients a true continuum of psychiatric care – both inpatient and outpatient – to help treat those persons suffering from severe mental illness.” DART Silver Line Remember those pesky road closures we mentioned earlier? Well, few are better acquainted with that particular inconve- nience than those who live near the planned DART Silver Line, which will connect Shiloh Road in Plano to DFW Air- port. The 26-mile rail will travel through Collin, Dallas and Tarrant counties, but the year-long closure of Hillcrest Road to accommodate construction had neighbors saying “no thanks” to the transit plan. Nonetheless, DART began testing the cars on the $2 billion project last summer, and the trains are expected to be operational in late 2025. Or maybe early 2026. You know how these things go. Still, the majority of the construction that has caused ire for nearby neighbors is expected to wrap up this year. Testing of the rail line will run through this summer, offi- cials say. Getty Images DART’s Silver Line might be pulling into the DFW International Airport station in 2025. Unfair Park from p8
