WEST JORDAN, Utah—A Utah mother has been charged with child abuse and abandonment after prosecutors say she left her 8-year-old son at a hospital.
Court documents say the boy walked into the hospital in West Jordan on Feb. 21 and gave employees a note from his mother saying she didn’t want him and calling him rude and ungovernable.
According to prosecutors, the boy also said his mother hit him with a spoon.
The mother told KSL-TV that she thought it was ok to leave the boy at the hospital because of the state’s safe haven laws, which allow new parents to leave their children at hospitals, no questions asked.
Division of Child and Family Services spokeswoman Ashley Sumner says that law only applies to infants who are 1 to 3 days old.
