Ontario woman, group pushes for safe haven legislation to protect mothers in distress

Lisa Hill sits on a bench at Elgin Mills Cemetery north of Toronto and reflects on one tombstone in particular — the Huggum’s Hope Memorial, which bears the names of abandoned babies.

Hill said she believes she could have been one of them.

“I would not be standing here today,” she said while glancing at the man beside her.

READ MORE: Safe havens needed for unwanted babies in Toronto, advocates say

Scott Elliott is a retired police officer. On the Victoria Day long weekend in May 1967 when he was nine years old, Elliott said he noticed a newborn baby girl beneath a rose bush in Toronto’s north end. He said he picked her up and brought her home.

“(I) found her lying on the ground with nothing on her back — just lying on the dirt,” he said, adding he remembers the day in vivid detail.

“She still had her umbilical cord. She was actually turning a little blue because it was so cold. I was wearing a winter coat, so she was cold.

“She’d probably been out there for I wouldn’t say more than an hour because she wouldn’t have survived … It was something you’ll never forget.”

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His actions saved Hill. Although he said if it were up to him and his family, she would have been named “Victoria Rose” because it was Victoria Day weekend and she was hidden near a rose bush.

Twenty-five years after that fateful day, the two are now close friends and together they are fighting to help save other abandoned babies.

Hill and Elliott support the efforts of the organization Abuse Hurts, which is pushing for provincial legislation that would allow mothers to drop off unwanted babies at safe places such as hospitals with no questions asked.

“Fifty-one years later and we are still discussing this. We don’t have another option for a mother in distress or in a situation that maybe seems OK for you but is not OK for her,” Hill said.

“I get that people are fussed about Hydro and all sorts of other serious provincial issues but we’re talking about dead babies and our ask is simple policy, simple legislation, an awareness campaign, this wouldn’t cost much,” John Muise, director of public safety for Abuse Hurts, said.

Newmarket–Aurora Progressive Conservative candidate Christine Elliott said it’s a cause close to her heart.

“My great grandfather was also a foundling, that’s what they were called then, he was an abandoned baby as well,” she said.

“My family grew up with that so I have a chance now in life because my great grandfather was found and was adopted.”

Meanwhile, outside at the memorial with the names of 11 babies whose remains were buried at the cemetery, Hill shared a message with the mother who abandoned her.

“I try to put myself in my mother’s shoes and I think how sad that must have been for her,” she said.

“I would love to hear what was going through her mind — not from a judgement perspective, just an understanding — and it would lend to where mothers are at and really give people an understanding as to why this is such an important crusade.”

Hill said she forgives the woman who left her. She said she feels no resentment and she sends her this message.

“I’m here and I’m happy. I’m good, so she has nothing to worry about,” she said.