By Will Hall, Baptist Message executive editor
As recently as 2016, Louisiana was rated the best in the nation for combatting human trafficking. However, since 2014 when the state first began collecting human trafficking data, cases have risen from 206 to 1,743 in 2023. Moreover, recent numbers show that 86 percent of those rescued were sex trafficking victims, and 83 percent were under the age of 18 years.
With Act 586 as the legal vehicle, Sen. Stewart Cathey, a member with First Baptist Church, West Monroe, significantly strengthened penalties for human trafficking based on a graduated scale, with the harshest punishment for those who prey on minors (persons under the age of 18 years) for commercial sex: “life imprisonment at hard labor without benefit of probation, parole, or suspension of sentence and fined not more than seventy-five thousand dollars.”
These more stringent sentencing requirements could figure prominently as deterrents to sex crimes early in 2025, when Super Bowl LIX comes to New Orleans. Sports championship events like it have been linked with surges in human trafficking for sexual activity.
NEWBORN SAFE HAVENS
Sen. Adam Bass, a member with Cypress Baptist Church, Benton, expanded access in Louisiana’s safe haven program via Act 398 that allows parents to anonymously relinquish babies for adoption or foster care. Previously, a “safe haven baby box” (a climate-controlled, electronically monitored device that allows parents to anonymously surrender an “unwanted” newborn in a safe environment) was authorized to be installed “in a designated emergency care facility that is physically located inside of a licensed hospital and has an emergency department that is staffed 24 hours per day.”
Bass successfully pushed to allow such newborn safety devices to be installed “in any designated emergency care facility that is staffed continuously on a 24-hour basis, seven days a week, and 365 days a year” if it meets detailed requirements for qualified personnel on duty, constant monitoring of the baby box and essential equipment on hand to ensure the newborn’s safety and health.
The Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services reported that 83 babies have been rescued via the safe haven process since 2004. The new law promises to rescue even more babies who otherwise might face abandonment in less ideal conditions.
SCHOOL & PROLIFE CHOICES
Sen. Rick Edmonds, who retired as pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, Shreveport, and now serves as pastor of First Baptist Church, McComb, Mississippi, carried the banners for adoption and school choice during the 2024 legislative session:
— Act 332, the “Compatible with Love Empowerment Act,” mandates that mothers who receive a “fetal abnormality” diagnosis for an unborn child must be informed about “resources, programs, and services for pregnant women and resources, programs, and services for infants and children born with disabilities” within 48 hours of such a diagnosis. The emphasis is to encourage and assist a mother and father to carry such a baby to term.
— Act 515, the “Adoption Awareness Act,” creates an “Adoption Awareness Program” that will “encourage the formation and maintenance of two-parent families.” The Department of Children and Family Services must hire a vendor to facilitate marketing, create a website, and provide a telephone or video hotline, with each promoting educational information about resources that encourage adoption.
— Act 362 restricts adoption services in the state to “an adoption facilitator or an entity … licensed in La. to assist in the adoption of children.” This restriction applies even “to advertise for adoption services.” It also requires these individuals and organizations to be designated as mandatory reporters of abuse.
Education
— Act 334, “Louisiana Public Charter School Law,” authorizes “school choice options for parents, teachers, and pupils,” by granting operational autonomy for “innovative kinds of independent public charter schools” from the control of city and parish school boards. However, these charter schools are still accountable for their academic results which will “be analyzed, considered, and repeated or replicated if appropriate.”
— Act 91 recenters the authority for a child to participate in the “Course Choice Program” from the local school superintendent or other governing authority of a school to the student with his or her parents to make such decisions “after consultation with the person designated by the governing authority of the school.”
— Act 1, “Louisiana Giving All True Opportunity to Rise (LA GATOR) Scholarship Program” provides for educational savings accounts to support parental choice in K-12 education, and perhaps has the most wide-ranging impact among Edmonds’s legislative initiatives. Essentially, state tax dollars for education will follow the student “whether the child’s best opportunities are found at a public school, charter school, private school, home study program, or at a faith-based or religious school.” The program also ensures students in non-traditional school settings may subsequently participate in the “Taylor Opportunity Program for Students” (TOPS) which provides funds for postsecondary education.
