Kansas City, Mo. ? A young mother, overwhelmed with the responsibility of raising her infant son and wanting him to have a better life, arranges to have the baby dropped off at a hospital emergency room.

It’s just the scenario lawmakers envisioned when they passed the state’s “Baby Moses Law,” known as the Safe Place for Newborns Act, in 2002. Or is it?

The law allows parents to abandon healthy infants with hospital employees, firefighters, emergency medical technicians or law enforcement officers. But it applies only to children 30 days old or younger — and Aaron Turman, left at Truman Medical Center on Wednesday afternoon by his mother’s boyfriend, is 8 months old.

His 21-year-old mother, Cindy Turman, told police Thursday that she knew about the law and that she couldn’t handle being a parent. Police have said they don’t consider the incident a crime, although Jackson County prosecutors have not ruled out filing charges.

In an interview with Kansas City television station KCTV, Turman talked about problems with her family that she said led her to give up the child and said she’s sure she did the right thing.

“It’s very hard, knowing that I can never hold my child again,” she said. “But I know it’s for the best. I just want him to know I love him and I will never stop.”

“I’m the one who took him in and dropped him off,” said the boyfriend, David Gardino. “I will live with that for the rest of my life.”

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Michael Gibbons, is among those who doesn’t believe the Baby Moses Law covers Aaron’s case. The bill, Gibbons said, was intended for inexperienced, scared teenagers.

“There is some pretty gross negligence or irresponsibility here,” said Gibbons, R-Kirkwood. “We didn’t want to make this a quickie form of adoption. We want to encourage responsible parenting.”

Douglas Abrams, a law professor at the University of Missouri who helped draft the bill, said the case follows the spirit — if not the letter — of the law.

“Abandoning the child is not something that somebody does lightly,” Abrams said. “The parent may be scared, immature, desperate. To bring the child safely to the hospital is an act of love.”

But Ruth Ehresman, public policy director for Citizens for Missouri’s Children, said some parents could use the law as an easy out.

“Certainly, bringing a baby to a safe place is better than dumping him in a Dumpster,” she said. “But what is at the root of giving up the baby? Are there problems that are solvable?”

The baby is now in foster care, and a hearing on his custody was being held Friday.

In Kansas, a similar law applies to unharmed infants less than 45 days old. The baby must be given to an employee of a city or county health department, fire station or medical facility.