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Is separating 416 children from their mothers to place them into foster care a good idea - ever? Dr. Phil doesn’t think so. A few quick statistics on the foster care system can erase any notion that these children could have a normal, healthy life once separated from their mothers. Clearly, the polygamy sect puts authorities in a difficult situation. But separating hundreds of children from their mothers and purposefully sending them into a such a potentially turbulent existence - which will likely land the majority of them on the street or in prison - is enough to make any concerned citizen think twice.

King: Let’s turn to the polygamy matter. If the allegations of abuse are true, do you see any problem with all of these children in foster care? Watch Dr. Phil talk with Larry King about the removal of the FLDS children »

McGraw: I see huge problems with it, Larry. 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.

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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.”

Parents across California and the nation were relieved to hear the California Court of Appeals decision last night granting a motion for a rehearing in the ruling that banned homeschooling across the state — unless parents held a teacher’s license qualifying them to teach in public schools. The possibility now exists for changing the decision, when the court holds a new hearing in June. Read more here.

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 »

Controversy Across the Globe over a Child’s “Right to Privacy”

A bill in the Wisconsin legislature raised quite a controversy in 2003, sparking a debate over “privacy rights” and parental involvement.  The measure would let parents know what books, CDs, and video tapes checked out of public libraries from their children under the age of 16.

Opponents claimed that the measure will harm children by jeopardizing their right to privacy. “It’s a major invasion of the right of privacy of children,” says Rep. Marlin Schneider, an opponent of the bill. “Children need to understand their rights are protected, and if government won’t protect their rights nobody will.”

But state Representative Sheryl Albers explained that the bill is about the ability of parents to be informed about what is going on in the lives of their children. Senator Joseph Leibham, the legislation’s Senate sponsor, agreeed, saying that “this bill provides parents the opportunity to be informed and involved in the lives of their teenage children.”

AN EXPANDING “RIGHT TO PRIVACY”?

The Wisconsin legislature passed the bill in 2003, but the controversy remains.  With few exceptions, libraries in the United States are currently prohibited from disclosing any records that indicate the identity of individuals who borrow library materials or use library services: even if the individual is a young child and the inquirer is a parent. Read the rest of this entry »

Keeping with the child-privacy-from-the-parents theme… In New Zealand a 16 year-old girl ran away from home and the parents are trying to find her. The police know where she is but they can’t tell the parents because of “privacy rights of children.”

Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ had this to say in a press release, “Politicians, with the support of the UN, Children’s Commissioner and Youth Law Project to name a few, have sought to increase children’s rights without considering the vital role of parents, and ways of strengthening families rather than splitting them.”

What we are seeing in New Zealand, the UK, and other parts of the world is heading our way. The question is, will we stop it? Will we stand up and fortify the rights of parents for the good of children?

Everyone, (ok, almost everyone) agrees that children need their parents. Let’s make a stand together. Please consider (after signing the petition) contributing to ParentalRights.org so we can further spread the message and then telling your friends about the campaign.

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: