Project Cuddle Rescues Unwanted Babies

We've all heard those stories about teen mothers throwing their babies in the trash can when they deliver in the bathroom at the prom. If you're like me, you shake your head in disbelief and sadness, maybe even utter a few choice words, then move on.

Not Debbe Magnusen. No, Magnusen wasn't just going to sit there after she read a newspaper article about the discovery of a dead baby in a file cabinet in Yorba Linda, Calif., in 1996. Instead, she started a hotline called Project Cuddle and went on TV to announce to the world that any mother who couldn't or didn't want to keep her newborn could put it in a basket and drop it off on the Magnusen porch in Costa Mesa, Calif., no questions asked, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports.

And now, she's going to be on TV again, or at least her story will, in a TV movie about her life produced by John Stamos of Full House fame, the organization's national spokesman.

It turns out a lot of new mothers were desperate enough to take her up on her offer, and 13 years later, she has rescued 661 babies from uncertain fates. About half the women who call the hotline end up giving up their babies, who Magnusen finds adoptive homes for. She has appeared on Oprah, Geraldo and Ricki Lake, among others, but the film based on her life is something new.

Photo courtesy of peasap, via Flickr