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Updated with another video.

Updated with video.

Tenured University of Michigan classical archeology professor, Christopher Ratte, took his 7-year-old son to a Tigers baseball game at Comerica Park in Detroit, Michigan. He ordered a drink for himself and what he thought was a lemonade for his son. The reality was he had ordered a Mike’s Hard Lemonade, which is an alcoholic drink for his young son. Ratte said that he didn’t even know that there was such a thing as alcoholic lemonade. Check out this photo of a sign of the drinks menu.

A security guard witnessed the boy drinking it and the eventual result was this young boy spending three days and two nights in foster care. Before you jump to conclusions please read the details about this case below.

Read the rest of this entry »

Implicit or explicit in the arguments of greater government intrusion in families is that we can’t trust parents (e.g. the debate over homeschooling in California). Never said but always implicit in those arguments is that government can always be trusted with children without check.

When anyone says that we should abandon the fundamental right of parents in favor of the “best interest of the child” they are saying that parents cannot be trusted and government can.

Those of us that support the parental rights doctrine say that the presumption of trust should be with the parents. As a society we have always presumed that parents love their children and want what is best for them. As Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger said in the Parham v. J.R. (1979) opinion:

The law’s concept of the family rests on a presumption that parents possess what a child lacks in maturity, experience, and capacity for judgment required for making life’s difficult decisions. More important, historically it has recognized that natural bonds of affection lead parents to act in the best interests of their children.

…

The statist notion that governmental power should supersede parental authority in all cases because some parents abuse and neglect children is repugnant to American tradition.

I love that line, “repugnant to American tradition.” Speaking of repugnant to the American tradition, check out this video that highlighs the sad tale of government power intruding into the family: Read the rest of this entry »

The Press-Enterprise has this story about a California family, still reeling from the trauma of separation by state social workers…

Kirk and Leslie Udvardi’s four children were born with serious medical conditions that resulted in more than 400 trips to the hospital. When Leslie grew frustrated at doctors’ failed attempts to diagnose her children, she turned to the internet and the Chiari Institute in Great Neck, N.Y., one of a handful of hospitals in the country that specializes in a medical condition that she feared that her children might have.  Doctors at the Institute have since confirmed that the mother’s suspicions were on-target.

But instead of welcoming this input, doctors reported the Udvardi’s to social services, suspecting that Leslie had Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, a mental disorder in which a parent lies about a child’s illness or inflicts injuries to get attention from doctors.  The social workers intervened, taking custody of the children while they were at school and placing them in foster care for six days, until the parents’ case went to trial.

The judge criticized the county’s expert witness and dismissed the county to have the four children permanently removed from their parents’ custody, but the family now faces a new challenge: paying off the $151,000 in legal fees spent fighting off the allegations.  Even worse, legal standards prevent the family from recouping the costs from the social workers who made the initial allegations.

“Our judicial system has become grossly iniquitous,” Leslie writes in an open letter.  “Medical professionals responsible for unbiased and honest evaluations have the power to devastate and destroy families with no legal accountability.”

In the meantime, the family is struggling to find a way to meet the costs.  “We still have the debt and the emotional scars,” eighteen year-old Samuel says. “Maybe, eventually, I will get over it, but it’s going to take some time.”

What kind of society rips a 17-year-old autistic boy from his loving home and places him in a state-run mental institution, where he is given heavy doses of drugs, kept physically restrained, kept away from his family, deprived of books and other mental stimulation and is left alone to rot?

According to an opinion piece published last Sunday in California’s Orange County Register, it can be our own society. Read the rest of this entry »

At ParentalRights.org, we would like to invite you to visit two recently launched areas of our website. As this campaign grows, we are continuing to develop new sections on the website that will help engage and educate our audience on the importance of a Parental Rights Amendment. Check out the following newly added pages.

The Answer Center

Many of our website users have questions about the Parental Rights Amendment - why it is so essential, what it will accomplish, and even how long it might take to amend the Constitution. Others have questions like the following:

- If every other nation has signed on to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, shouldn’t the US sign as well?

- I’ve heard some people say that the Parental Rights Amendment will protect child abusers. Is this true?

To find answers to these questions and many others, visit the Answer Center. And be sure to forward this email to your friends who may have questions about the Parental Rights Amendment.

Real Life Stories

Across the country many parents are fighting the state to protect their parental rights. This section features just a few of their real-life stories - stories of parents who are seeking to protect their children and families from government intrusion. Read more on Real Life Stories.

Take a moment to explore these newly added sections on the website, and then join the conversation on our blog. We are frequently posting new stories, articles, and videos, so visit now and discover the latest issues in the battle to protect parental rights.

Sincerely,
The ParentalRights.org Team

ParentalRights.org was recently quoted in this news article, with excerpts below. 

Judge Boots Parents from Son’s Schooling

Another judge in Massachusetts has ruled against parental input regarding the education of their own children, this time deciding that a district’s special education program for a 13-year-old can move forward even though his parents refused to sign an authorization for the additional monitoring and counseling…

Officials at Parental Rights (www.ParentalRights.org) said they couldn’t comment on the specific case without seeing more information about the judge’s order, which was issued verbally and not in writing. But they said in general, the system should not push parents away.

“Parents know their children better than anyone and if the state refuses to partner with parents in public schools then we’ve got a serious problem,” a spokesman said.

A mother loses three children to CPS… then loses three more

While it may take weeks, months or years to take someone’s freedom away, on May 16, 2005, it took only 17 minutes to take three children away from their mother.

Vanessa Shanks of Hardin County, Kentucky, is one of the many parents each year who lose their children to the state, often in confidential hearings. Shanks was originally charged with truancy, but social workers later declared her home to be unsafe after they discovered an open bleach bottle on the floor: left out because she had just finished doing the laundry. Apalled by what they had found, Kentucky Child Protective Services moved to terminate Shanks’s parental rights to three of her six children.

A NIGHTMARE IN SEVENTEEN MINUTES

The state accused Shanks of educational and medical neglect. The evidence? The social worker testified that Shank’s eleven year-old child had a kindergarten reading-level, and that some of the children had missed days at school, though no records or testimony from the school was produced. The evidence for “medical neglect” was equally spurious: the social worker testified that one of the three children, who had been diagnosed with spina bifida, had missed some doctor’s appointments.

But this scanty evidence was more than enough for the family court judge, who ruled after only seventeen-minutes that the children should be placed in the custody of the state.

“I didn’t see my children for 11 months. It is the hardest thing you can go through,” said Shanks. “It’s like someone close to you just dies, like you don’t have a part of you anymore.”

CPS RETALIATES

When Shanks decided to appeal the decision, the unthinkable happened: CPS came after her again, this time removing her other three children, as well as fourteen children from her extended family.

“The first thing they came to us and said was, ‘Well, you started an appeal,’” Shanks said. “Nothing else.”

Shanks turned to local attorney Bob Bishop for help, who said he couldn’t believe what he saw when he took Shanks’s case. “There has to be something, some evidence of wrongdoing that has placed a child in danger or has hurt the child, and a pattern of conduct not due to poverty alone,” said Bishop.

In response, CPS removed Bishop’s adopted daughter from his home. “They said if you don’t cooperate with us, we’re going to take all of your children away, and we’re going to charge you with emotional abuse,” said Jennifer Bishop, the attorney’s wife.

SAD REALITY

In 2006, the Kentucky Court of Appeals ruled that the judge made a mistake in removing Shanks’s three children, unanimously ruling that the state had acted in haste and offered no proof of abuse or neglect. But reunions like this are rare: terminations of parental rights have been upheld in the majority of such cases before the court over the past 10 years.

Shortly after Shanks’s children were restored, the director of Kentucky CPS said that the state would review the way parental rights are terminated. Yet earlier this month, a report issued by the state inspector general found that some social workers have been accused of “suspicious conduct” by fellow social workers, including lost records and conflicts-of-interest in termination proceedings.

FIGHTING FOR PARENTAL RIGHTS

Vanessa Shanks’s story highlights the dangers that parents face when the state steps in and takes the role of the parent. It can take years to bring a shattered family back together, but it only takes seventeen minutes to tear one apart.

Please join with us by encouraging your friends to get involved in the battle to protect parental rights. Please forward this email to your friends, and encourage them to join the campaign today at http://www.parentalrights.org/petition.

To see the full report on Vanessa Shanks’ story, see this report done by Channel 32 News, Louisville, Kentucky: http://www.parentalrights.org/blog/true-stories/parenting-while-poor-you-might-lose-your-kids

SOURCES

Target 32: Kentucky’s Child Protection System Investigated
http://www.wlky.com/target32/9478131/detail.html

Target 32 Investigates: Child Protective Services
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21760886/

If this doesn’t make your blood boil nothing will. A mom lost one of her kids because she was poor. When she appealed, CPS retaliated by taking her other kids and then briefly removing children from her extended family! When she finally got a lawyer they took the lawyer’s kids too! Should the government be restricted to recognizing the fundamental rights of parents? Or should we just allow the government to determine what is in the “best interest of the child”? Watch the video and then encourage your friends to sign the Parental Rights Amendment petition:

Below is a sad video about a mother who was a victim of domestic violence. Her child was taken as a result and put up for adoption. All of this was done in secret courts in the name of the “best interest of the child.” Don’t think that this could never happen in the United States. We are on the same path and have got to do something to stop it. Abuse does need to be investigated but the burden of proof must remain on the government. Kids staying with their parents is what is in the best interest of the child!

Maintaining the fundamental right of parents to direct the education and upbringing of their children is key and it can only be protected through a Constitutional Amendment. The reason that this is the only way is because of the source of the threat being federal courts and international law. Please join our campaign and help propel this amendment to a national issue. This is far broader than liberals against conservatives or Republicans against Democrats. It is about kids and their parents and how kids need their parents.

One last quick note, the last good Supreme Court case on parental rights, Troxel v. Granville, involved a mother fighting for her parental rights who was a victim of domestic violence. Even though the mom won that case, there are significant reasons to be worried about the precarious position of the child-parent bond.

Indiana Mother Accused of Child Abuse for Taking her Daughter to the ER

It started as a precautionary visit to the ER after an accident on the soccer field.

When Marilyn Brown decided to take her fifteen year-old daughter, Margrette, to the emergency room two weeks ago, she didn’t think she was doing anything extraordinary. Margrette had been hurt in a collision during a soccer game, which left a mark above her eye. The athletic trainer on the field didn’t think the injury was too bad, but Marilyn decided to take her daughter to the ER at Methodist Hospital - just in case.

When they arrived, staff members at the Indianapolis hospital told Marilyn that the wait time would be about two hours. The mother and daughter waited for over four hours, with no one able to tell them how much longer it would be before they could be seen.

ACCUSED OF . . . CHILD ABUSE?

Her daughter was exhausted so Marilyn decided to take her home and see her own doctor in the morning. She couldn’t believe what happened next. Hospital officials informed Marilyn that if she removed her child from the ER, the staff would report her to Child Protective Services for suspected child abuse. Read the rest of this entry »