One woman’s mission

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, February 6th.

We thank you for joining us today. Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Caring for the babies once they are born.

Abortion activists often say that the pro-life movement is focused solely on the unborn. But what happens when a woman and her friends set out to prove them wrong? WORLD Senior Writer Kim Henderson brings us this report.

KIM HENDERSON: The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. That day on the court’s steps, abortion activists shouted in anger.

AUDIO: [Abortion activists chanting]

They also pointed their fingers at conservatives like Dianne Pickering, a district director with the Mississippi Republican Federation of Women. She’s a feisty, pint-sized blonde. She was watching the action in the capital from her home in Collins, Mississippi.

PICKERING: We're accused of not caring about the child after the child gets here. Well, yes, we do.

Pickering knew crisis pregnancy centers were already thriving all across her state. So she got on a different band wagon, joining hundreds of her fellow Republican women.

NEWS CLIP: The Mississippi Legislature gavels in for the 2023 session…

Pickering and her group lobbied for a safe haven baby box law. That’s different from the safe haven law that was already on the books in Mississippi.

PICKERING: You could leave a child at a hospital, police station, fire department, and not be prosecuted, but you had to be identified, all kind of questions asked…

With a baby box, the mother could remain anonymous.

The box is a sort of incubator/bassinet built into a wall. It allows someone to safely and secretly surrender an infant. We reported on the organization behind these baby boxes two years ago.

But even in the state where the Dobbs case originated, Pickering says they had a hard time getting the law passed.

PICKERING: You would think with a super majority, Republican super majority in the House and the Senate, that it would be a slam dunk, but it wasn't. It was very hard, because they felt like they had a law that took care of that.

But the baby box advocates had a slogan: No shame. No blame. No names.

PICKERING: I don't think that a lot of people understood that a woman in crisis is more likely to leave a child in a safe place when she doesn't have to be identified.

The outside of a Safe Haven Baby Box Photo by Kim Henderson

So Republican women from 21 counties pulled out all the stops.

PICKERING: Calling our legislators, going to the Capitol, texting.

The law passed in April, 2023. That August, Pickering attended the dedication of Mississippi’s first baby box at a fire station in Long Beach.

PICKERING: And that's the first time I had seen a baby box. You know, physically, a baby box. And I cried. [LONG PAUSE] It was very emotional. God loves these mothers in crisis.

Pickering left that event with a new goal. She wanted a baby box in Collins, where she lived. But where could they put it? She went to see Greg Gibbs, the local hospital administrator.

PICKERING: I said, “Greg, are you going to get us a baby box here in the hospital?” And he looked at me, and he said, “Well, are you going to raise the money?”

They needed $20,000. Pickering and her group of local Republican women got to work. Here’s Janice Bryant, the group’s president.

BRYANT: I think this was probably the easiest fundraiser that I've ever participated in. Within two weeks, we had raised $20,000.

And the wheels got rolling. Meanwhile, though, the unthinkable happened just a few hours drive away.

NEWS CLIP: Investigators with the Marshall County Sheriff's office are asking for your help after a newborn baby is found behind a dumpster...

The news broke Pickering’s heart. And spurred her on.

LADIES: There's a little baby blanket in here, a mattress pad with a blanket, and a little cap to put on their little precious heads.

Today, there’s a baby box on the exterior wall of Covington County Hospital, just west of the ER entrance.

Hospital director David Culpepper opens the baby box at Covington County Hospital. Photo by Kim Henderson

LADIES: It's temperature controlled, and you can feel the warmth in there. Yeah, it's very warm.

The hospital dedicated the box last May. That was about the same time a woman who we’ll never know discovered she was pregnant. Seven months passed. It was December. Cold. Christmas lights sparkled in the small community.

AUDIO: [Baby box alarm]

David Culpepper, the hospital’s director of marketing and communications, was on his way to work when he got a call.

CULPEPPER: We've had a baby safely surrendered in the box. Baby is stable and being transferred. And that's all the information I get.

And even that information wasn’t released to the media until January. But still, Culpepper felt the weight of what happened.

CULPEPPER: There were a few fist bumps here and there. It's a joyous occasion, but at the same time, it's a sad occasion, because, you know, at some point, a parent has made that decision to place that child there and walk away and give them an opportunity.

That’s Dianne Pickering’s take, too. She’s in the dark about the baby, and she’s perfectly fine with it. She says that’s the whole premise—privacy. And she hopes critics are watching.

PICKERING: No woman in the state of Mississippi should feel that they're alone.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kim Henderson in Collins, Mississippi.

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