Ex-FLDS members find tears, complaints ironic

Hearing the FLDS mothers complain about having their families ripped from them is bitterly ironic to Richard Holm.

"The families there have been stolen and kidnapped from their fathers," he told the Deseret News on Tuesday.

Holm was kicked out of the church in 2003 by its leader, Warren Jeffs, and his two wives and children were told to leave him. They were placed with his brother.

"They (FLDS leaders) are guilty of what they're accusing the authorities of doing," Holm said.

Under Jeffs, dozens of men were told to "repent from a distance" for various sins. Some left the FLDS Church and have been speaking out against the polygamous sect, while others continue to be seeking penance and hope to be allowed back in.

Hundreds of teenagers also have been kicked out or run away from the polygamous sect. Known as the "Lost Boys," some have wound up living on the streets or crashing in crowded apartments. Some have turned to drugs or crime.

Those who work with the "Lost Boys" say the children are viewing what happened in Texas as another raid.

As Antonin Scalia said in his concurring opinion in the recent Supreme Court case upholding the three-drug coctail to induce death, the opponents of the death penalty cannot point to a documented case in recent history where a person actually put to death is later found to have been innocent.

On the other hand, from a legal standpoint we would never put to death an innocent man, because by definition the person would have been convicted of a crime, and therefore be “guilty”.

If a jury finds beyond a reasonable doubt that a child has been abused, I don’t fault the state for taking action, even though we know that occasionally convictions are overturned.

However, when the police shoot people who turn out to be unarmed innocents who were mistkenly thought to be criminals, that is generally frowned upon.

Your answer suggests that “being cared for” means the children are not being harmed. In fact, the act of taking children from their parents harms them. It causes separation anxiety, fears of abandonment, and other difficulties. Often these children suffer long-term mental and sometimes physical problems.

I’m just asking you what percentage you find acceptable in your pursuit of ensuring that children who are being abused are saved. One innocent child ripped from their family in order to save 10 who are being abused by their families? Would that be OK? one child out of 100?

Our criminal justice system is designed to let 100 guilty go free so that one innocent man doesn’t go to jail. But I’ve heard child protection advocates say that jailing 100 innocent men would be OK if it protected one child from real abuse.

I doubt you would agree with that, but can we throw one innocent man in jail to rescue 100 abused children?

Here is the exit question for you: Suppose we could save X number of abused children, in exchange for you going to prison for the rest of your life.

What is the minimum number “X” you would accept before you were willing to voluntarily go to prison for the rest of your life? 1? 10? 100? Think carefully — because if you are arguing that innocent men should be forcibly imprisoned to save “X” kids, you should be willing to VOLUNTARILY take their place.

I doubt any of them got near a hospital for labor/delivery. They have a small ‘medical center’ on the compound, they probably deliver there or with midwife/sister wife help at home. I read just this weekend that they are expected to labor and deliver in silence, since making noise (cries, grunts, moans) would make them ‘unworthy’. I can’t imagine! The same article also mentioned kitchen scissor episiotomies and repair jobs with dental floss. (Article was by Flora Jessop.) There are no birth certificates registered or issued, no prints taken, maternal or infant. That’s part of the ID problem now, the state has no record of any of these kids because there aren’t any records, from birth on. And most likely the mothers have no birth certificates themselves either. Then you factor in that some of the kids were removed from their families in Colorado Creek and placed in Texas with other people and some of the people are believed to be from another compound in Canada...it would take the wisdom of Solomon himself to figure out the best way to do all this.

I wonder how many kids are going to come up unrelated to any of the adults there...?

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