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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.

The news was a complete shock to Marilyn, who thought that she had done the right thing by bringing her daughter to the ER for an injury that even the athletic trainer did not consider serious. “I’m getting ready to just absolutely break down in tears,” she recounts. “I’m being accused of abusing my child.” At the time Marilyn’s story broke in the news, social workers had opened a case and wanted a home visit to look for signs of child abuse.

UNJUST ALLEGATIONS

Approximately 3 million child abuse cases are reported each year, but according to Martin Guggenheim, Professor of Law at New York University, two-thirds of these reports are never substantiated by investigating officials, and of the substantiated cases, the vast majority of them do not involve serious charges. In fact, according to the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, investigators are twice as likely to incorrectly “substantiate” a case than they are to mislabel a case as “unfounded.”

The result of these heavy-handed investigations is that parents are losing their parental rights without just cause. A study conducted by the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges found that judges in New York were removing children from their parents without question - even when there was no emergency. A federal court in New York, which looked into the issue in 2002, was appalled to find that social workers routinely charged battered mothers with neglect, when the only basis for that allegation was that the children were present when the mother was a victim of domestic violence. Yet scores of children had been removed from their homes and placed in foster care on the basis of these unjust allegations.

PROTECTING CHILDREN BY PROTECTING THEIR PARENTS

The government sends the wrong message when it accuses well-meaning parents like Marilyn Brown of child abuse. Such a message has a chilling effect on well-meaning parents who seek health care for their children, but instead find suspicion and distrust around every corner. Parents should be supported rather than threatened, helped rather than undermined.

Join with us by encouraging others to get involved in the battle to protect parental rights.

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SOURCES

Mom Blames Hospital ER For CPS Investigation

Martin Guggenheim, What’s Wrong With Children’s Rights? (2005)

National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, Study of National Incidence and Prevalence of Child Abuse and Neglect (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1988)

National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, Making Reasonable Efforts: Steps for Keeping Families Together (Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, 1987)

Nicholson v. Williams, 203 F. Supp. 2d 153 (E.D.N.Y., 2002)