Posted on 03/28/2012 7:52:10 AM PDT by Sopater
I am not content to sit on the sidelines while the government gradually usurps the very essence of parental rights. I hope you share my determination. We need to stand with people like Scott and Jodi Ferris (obviously no relation to someone named Farris). Here’s their story:
Jodi went into labor a bit earlier than she had expected—and the baby was coming rapidly. Given their location and other factors, the midwife they had hoped would deliver the baby at their home encouraged them to get in an ambulance and head to the hospital.
Their baby, whom I will call “Annie,” was born in the ambulance in the parking lot of the Hershey Medical Center—a government hospital in Pennsylvania. Hospital personnel arrived very quickly and took charge of both baby and mom.
As any mother would do, Jodi immediately began to ask the nurses and attendants how her baby was doing. The hospital staff was utterly unresponsive. When they started to give Jodi an injection, she asked what it was and what it was for. They gave her vague answers like, “It’s just to help.” Only after giving her the injection of oxytocin did they tell her what it was and then asked, “You aren’t allergic to that are you?”
Jodi persisted in asking about Annie. No one would tell her anything other than “she’s in good hands and you’ll be able to see her soon.”
Eventually a doctor told her that Annie scored a 9 on a physical exam applied to newborns known as the APGAR test. A score of 8 or higher is considered healthy. (It is unclear when the score was given since she was in the ambulance at birth.) But shortly after this a different doctor told Jodi that Annie was “very sick” and would need to stay in the hospital. This doctor’s comments were accompanied by an explanation of his disdain for midwives saying, “Too many people think they know what they’re doing.”
About an hour later, another hospital staffer finally brought Annie to Jodi and said, “The baby is doing good. She will be able to go home in no time.”
However, several hours later yet another staffer told Scott and Jodi that Annie would have to stay in the hospital for 48 to 72 hours for observation. Even though they persisted in asking why Annie would need to stay, his only answer was that “the law requires us to keep the baby for 48 hours.” When they asked for a reference to this supposed law, he answered, “you’ll have to get that from risk management.” (By the way, there is no such law in Pennsylvania.)
The risk management staffer eventually told them that even though they saw nothing wrong with the baby, they just like “to keep babies like this” for 48–72 hours. The Ferrises were told that Annie would not be released for this period since it was “unsafe for her to leave the hospital.”
Eventually, a risk management staffer admitted that the risk that was being managed was not the health of Annie but the risk that the hospital might get sued if something went wrong after she was discharged.
Ultimately, risk management said that they would be satisfied with a 24-hour stay and that Jodi and Scott could remain with the baby overnight.
Late in the afternoon, a government social worker named Angelica Lopez-Heagy came into Jodi’s room announcing that she was there to conduct an investigation. Jodi asked to know the allegations. The social worker claimed that it would be against the law for her to show Jodi the allegations.
Jodi replied that she would not be comfortable answering the questions if she couldn’t know the allegations. Immediately the social worker proclaimed, “Since you’re not going to cooperate, I’ll just go and call the police and we can take custody of the baby.”
Fearing that the social worker would carry out her threat, Jodi replied that she was willing to cooperate.
The social worker soon intimated that the issue was Jodi’s refusal to consent to medical treatment for the baby. Jodi replied that she had no idea why anyone would say that. The social worker claimed that she had refused to allow a Vitamin K shot for Annie. Jodi replied that no one had asked her about such a shot. Moreover, she had overheard hospital staffers saying that they had already given Annie such a shot.
Neither the social worker nor any hospital staffer ever gave Jodi or Scott any example of any medically necessary treatment that they had refused for Annie.
At this point, Scott left the hospital to tend to their older children who were staying with friends.
Shortly after this, the hospital asked to check Annie’s white blood cell count and to perform a strep test. Jodi agreed to the testing.
Then the hospital demanded that they give Annie shot for Hepatitis B. Jodi said that she would agree only if they tested her or Annie to see if either of them were positive. If so, then she was quite willing to have the shot for Annie. The hospital claimed that they had forgotten about this earlier when it was still possible to test that day, and that they needed to give the shot anyway without any testing.
When the social worker pressed her to make an immediate decision about this shot, Jodi asked her if they could simply wait until Scott got back before they decided.
Put yourself in Jodi’s shoes at this moment. You gave birth that morning in an ambulance. The hospital has made wild and conflicting claims about your baby’s health all day long. You are exhausted. You are in pain. Your husband has gone to check on your children. And a social worker who has threatened to take your baby into police custody is standing in your hospital room demanding that you make an immediate decision.
Jodi simply said, “Please can’t this wait until my husband gets back.”
The social worker renewed her threat. If Jodi would not answer her question right then, she would call the police. And then the social worker started adding conditions. She and Scott would have to agree to sign a safety plan before she could conclude her investigation.
Jodi said that she wanted her husband and an attorney to look at the plan. She felt she was in no position to read such a document and really understand what she was being pressured to sign.
And then the story turns ugly.
The social worker left the room and called the police. Without a court order they took custody of Annie, immediately claiming that she was suffering from illness or injury—a patently false claim.
The social worker consented to the administration of the Hepatitis B shot even though no blood test had been done.
The police made Jodi Ferris get up out of her hospital bed and escorted her to the entrance—they were expelling her from the hospital because she had not signed the “safety plan.”
Scott met her at the entrance to the hospital. The police escorted them both off of the grounds of the hospital.
Jodi was told that she would be allowed to return every three hours to nurse the baby through the night.
Jodi and Scott were forced to spend the night that she had given birth in their car in the parking lot of a nearby Wal-Mart. You read that right. They kicked this mother out of the hospital, and in order to be close enough to feed her child, she had to sleep in the car.
To add insult to injury, Jodi was given access to Annie only sporadically and not every three hours.
The next morning a judicial officer held a shelter care hearing. After hearing the evidence, the officer immediately returned custody of Annie to her parents.
No parents should be put through this kind of ordeal. It is not a crime to ask questions about the well-being of your child. It is not a crime to ask for testing to ensure that a procedure is needed before it is done. It is not a crime to be a protective mom.
It is a moral offense of the highest order to kick a mother out of a hospital and to seize her child on the day of her birth simply because a mom wanted to have her husband read a legal document before she signed.
Both the medical personnel and the social worker engaged in outrageous behavior toward this family.
And we believe that they violated their rights under the Constitution of the United States. And we are going to court to prove it.
Why is HSLDA fighting for parental rights in this context? It is not a homeschooling case.
We are taking this case because we are tired of seeing the erosion of parental rights in virtually every area of life. Parental rights in medical cases have an impact on broader parental rights, including educational decisions.
And the plain fact is this: If we don’t fight for parental rights, it is probable that our rights will be eroded bit by bit until there is nothing that remains.
We cannot afford to fund cases like this out of HSLDA’s membership dues. We are taking this case because we believe that our members and friends will stand with Jodi and Scott Ferris. We believe that parents should not be punished by “over-the-top” social workers and doctors.
The social worker’s priority was not the welfare of Annie, but her own convenience and her own perception of her power. She was aiming to teach this homeschooling mother a lesson.
And the hospital was clearly not concerned that Annie had a medical issue—they were just trying to avoid being sued for medical malpractice.
When government workers run over parents in cases like this, the lesson that needs to be taught is to the government.
This case will cost tens of thousands of dollars. Your tax-deductible gifts to the Homeschool Freedom Fund of the Home School Foundation will make it possible for us to take this case to court and to try to establish a precedent that will help protect us all.
All of our families are at risk when the government is allowed to run over one of us. When we stand together, we can fight back for freedom and for truth.
Thanks for giving as the Lord leads you. And pray for us. This is not an easy case. We really need your ongoing prayers.
Once you've had a significant encounter (ie, learning experience) with Child Protective Services or a social worker on speed dial with same, you know this: either you have stupendous financial resources or you shut up and lie low for 18 years.
That's how long your children are hostages to fortune. That's how long you are not entitled to any presumption of innocence. That's how long they are empowered by an almost effortless, almost instantaneous court order to send an armed man to your door to take your children from you.
Lawsuits like that are for the affluent, who are rarely subjected to torment from social workers. CPS agents prey mainly on those they perceive to be feeble and easy to take down.
Somewhat related to case workers. My son left a state where he got a dcf case closed and surviving is a separation order where he is granted custody of his 4 children. The mother has supervised only visitation. Now in Florida he is told the separation document has to be ‘domesticated’ or else it carries no weight. Now case was closed with dcf in the original state. He is now being told that dcf in Florida can open a case just because of the domestication (re-recording) action. Can anybody chip in here? Will he be faced with dcf in every state he might move to now? fyi: dcf was party to the separation decree in the original state.
What in heaven set you off about a SSN application?
Frankly, I don’t remember any questions for that.
Maybe name of mother, father, etc.
use of midwife and child born in ambulance
Although I'm not certain I suspect that there's at least one exception to that rule.....when it's deemed by hospital administration that a newborn is in danger of mistreatment/abuse/neglect/improper parenting they'd almost certainly be allowed to "take custody" of the child,temporarily,on an emergency basis until a court or government official takes the matter further.
As I said earlier,OB/Newborn Medicine is world unto itself with its own standards of practice *and* legal requirements.
The labor nurse got so impatient with me as I was washing my face that she literally closed and locked my makeup case with my finger still inside.
A nurse came in and took my son claiming she needed to weigh him (but not his twin sister?). Too many minutes later I was wandering the halls, twin sister in tow, desperately searching for my son. No nurse would so much as turn to answer my please for help. When I finally got him back I put my bed against the door to keep anyone from coming in, called my husband to come get me, and we left. Twenty one years later, I'm still freaking angry.
The medical industry is just that: An Industry. It's a money-making BUSINESS! The main focus is not Health care, but making money and (now) the government is trying ti use it to control people like cattle. My suggestion is to primarily keep yourself healthy and avoid them like the plague. READ! STUDY! HELP YOURSELF AND DON'T TAKE THEIR WORD FOR IT!
It is drilled into their lackey's (nurses, secretaries, etc.) to sell goods and services that are unneeded or unwanted, especially if the patients insurance will pay for it (Why not get it? It's FREE to YOU!!!).
Good Lord Jesus! What is this country coming too?
So this family that took Social Services to court for threatening to take children away now has the newborn nearly confiscated?
I did some searches on the web, and could find nothing to support sumarinerswife’s suggestion that there’s more to the story. Granted, there may well be more to the story, but it is not publicly available, that I could find.
It would appear to be sloppy copy — someone is mixing details of a PA case (Ferris) with a different case in AZ (Loudermilk).
Well, doggone, they forgot their check. In fact, they didn't even know you'd ever need a check. The penalty appeared to be the hospital taking custody of the baby for another day!
So, we ran down there with a check.
Next time the baby comes on Monday, not Friday.
I did not realize they had mixed the two stories together. It reads as if it is only refering to the PA case. Live and learn. Thanks to all for clearing this up.
I had midwifery care for all or part of several pregnancies. Babies are born on the way to the hospital quite often. Now maybe it was a lay midwife who rubs the medical establishment the wrong way, but the mother went to the hospital.
There are many many women who get no prenatal care, show up at the hospital in labor and go home with their babies with no legal difficulty in spite of nurses and doctors thinking, well this woman has no business having babies.
Pennsylvania does permit Certified Professional Midwives to attend home births.
Wait, what? That ain’t INOVA.
I have my own coffie mug at both FFX and Arlington.
He could always move to an area where the courts and Child Protectors are far too busy with real criminals to hassle him. But there, he’d have other problems. And d*** few gun rights.
> I hope they sue the pants off of that hospital, the doctor, the case worker, and the nurses.
Sue? I’d be filing kidnapping charges.
Funny, Giving Hep B vaccines to newborns doesn’t sound right to me. Was there any reason to give your grand son Hep B vaccine? Does your daughter/daughter in law have Hep B? If not, does it not seem like a bad idea to give a newborn multiple vaccinations for a disease they have almost no chance of being exposed to? You do realize that it is transmitted via blood/semen and most newborns through at least 10 years of age SHOULD NOT be coming into contact with those things or doing IV drugs.
Bottom line, if mom doesn’t have it, babies don’t need it.
The first big screwing I took in business was at the hands of an ER doc. It was his partner who gave me to understand the “minor deity” thing. Later he actually opened a leech-therapy clinic or something like that.
Wow, thanks... this will indeed help.
Been there too. If you go to the eye doctor for reading glasses and he says your distance vision isn't up to snuff, see what happens when you refuse to purchase a pair for that. He'll threaten to report you to motor vehicle.
We are losing our freedoms. Do not answer truthfully when a doctor asks if you own guns, or if you operate a motor vehicle. Such questions are not innocuous.
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