Posted on 10/31/2007 1:09:33 PM PDT by 3Lean
By ANNA JO BRATTON
Associated Press Writer
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - A Nebraska couple sued state health officials Thursday, arguing their rights were violated when their newborn baby was seized by sheriff's deputies so a mandatory blood test could be performed.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
You are correct. The Consitution applies to the Federal government.
Does that exempt individual states from adhering to constitutional guidance? Can individual states restrict freedom of speech? Can they search your house without probable cause? I know they can violate the 2nd amendment on a whim, but guns are not PC, so everyone ignores that violation.
I think it was A. Lincoln (sp?) that said "There are reasons to force a person to do something. "For their own good" is not one of those reasons."
Of course not.
Can individual states restrict freedom of speech?
Irrelevant to the discussion: this is an enumerated right guaranteed by the Constitution. Denying your children medical services isn't an enumerated right.
Can they search your house without probable cause?
Again, irrelevant, since this is an enumerated right.
I know they can violate the 2nd amendment on a whim, but guns are not PC, so everyone ignores that violation.
Again, irrelevant, since the right to bear arms is another enumerated right.
I think it was A. Lincoln (sp?) that said "There are reasons to force a person to do something. "For their own good" is not one of those reasons."
No one forced the parents to do anything. They were actively trying to do their child a potentially dangerous disservice, and they were restrained from doing so. The good contemplated here was not "their own good" but the good of their child, who is not old enough to make his own decisions and who needs the parents who allegedly love him to take care of him - a responsibility these parents flatly refused.
The state government has a responsibility to all of its citizens, including that child.
People who whine about statism (and I don't mean you) generally ignore the fact that individual citizens, through their disgusting behavior, invite the state in.
I wish these parents were decent human beings in the first place, so this entire controversy could have been avoided.
Sorry, but refusing blood tests is not neglect.
If it is a routine screen for childhood diseases, it most certainly is neglect.
Blood tests in of themselves are meaningless one way or another: the question is what the purpose of the blood test is. This one saves many people's lives in exchange for a very safe, quick and inexpensive procedure.
Basically, these parents were refusing their child the absolute minimum standard of care.
Blood tests in of themselves are meaningless one way or another
To you, perhaps. Not to these people. This decision was not taken lightly. If they really are neglectful, they wouldn't have cared about the tests, and the state would have performed them. The neglect wouldn't have shown up this early in the child's life.
Also, a blood test performed this early in the child's life is really a test of the parents and what they may have passed on to their child. Since the state cannot mandate tests on the parents, they merely shift their focus to the child, changing the rules.
While I don't really agree with the parents, I can certainly understand their position.
“If it is a routine screen for childhood diseases, it most certainly is neglect.”
This is screening for a disease — there is only a chance that the condition even exists. Please explain how it is neglectful to not look for a disease when, as it will certainly be in the vast majority of cases, the disease doesn’t exist?
At what point does exposing the child to risks (hospitals and doctors’ offices are known hotbeds of infection) outweigh the possible mitigation of other risks (the slight chance of a genetic abnormality)? What if for every case identified one child died of an infection? What if for every case identified 10 children died of an infection?
Here in my city they are trying to notify thousands of people that they need an HIV test because an anesthesiologist reused syringes. This is the second such issue to arise here in less than one year. Exposing children to potential medical malpractice must be just as neglectful as failing to screen them for obscure diseases, no?
You cannot make up your own religion on a whim in order to try and dodge the law.
There are those who argue that they do not need to carry a valid drivers' license because they interpret Revelations to mean that drivers' licenses are the mark of the Beast.
These idiots are still not allowed to drive without a license. People do not get special rights just because they are incompetent theologians.
If they really are neglectful, they wouldn't have cared about the tests, and the state would have performed them.
LOL! That's some twisted logic. They are proactive in denying their child basic care, so their vigor in injuring their child is to be interpreted as a lack of neglect?
Also, a blood test performed this early in the child's life is really a test of the parents and what they may have passed on to their child.
No, it is a test of the child to see if the child's life or health is in danger from a treatable disease.
And these parents [are alleged to have] violated that code.
These are important arguments to raise. However, the parents are not raising these arguments: they are arguing that their child should lose out because his parents have poor reading comprehension.
What s shame that less than half of the citizenry would agree with that statement anymore. We're certainly losing what the Founders built.
The Judge who signed that order should have known better. Some judges are just asking to be disbarred, and they should be.
Even if the State considers that testing this baby's blood was "justified" they went about it the wrong way. Furthermore, it looks more like retaliation against the parents because they objected before and another baby was not tested. If I was sitting on that jury, that's what I'd be thinking.
The scary part is that a State bureaucrat can claim anything to be justified and declare certain people enemies of the state because of their beliefs...and we all know where that can lead.
I stating that the government should absolutely NOT be deciding what is and what isn’t a required test. I’m not making a specific judgement on this procedure, but the notion that the state decides at all.
How is the whole forced pap-smear(sp) on young girls thing working out for our friends across the pond? Not what they had intended imo.
I do not know anything about this particular test. I do know that with medicine in general, often the cure is as bad as the disease. I.e. cancer. With vaccines, it often means giving the person the ailment in question with the intent that their immune system will take care of it. This is never 100% effective. So what if your child is the 0.01% of the population who gets the disease from the vaccine? It would stink being the 1 in 1000 who doesn’t fight off the vaccine sucessfully.
Also, I wouldn’t want any test done on my child that requires a shot through their heel.
By no stretch of the imagination was this a case of child abuse. And, while some liberals might disagree, it was not a case of child neglect.
And an excellent case can be made that the founders believed that the right to raise their own children without interference from a nanny state is, indeed, a "right retained by the people."
Heelstick is the most common way of obtaining blood from small babies. It’s done thousands of times a day. If your children were born in hospitals, they had heelsticks.
You couldn't pay me to go through that again.
Statistics
“Last year, out of 26,819 babies tested, 537 tested positive for one of the dozens of diseases, and 43 of those results were confirmed, according to the state’s Newborn Screening Program” AP article
This is the worse case scenario. 0.16%. The false positive rate is huge. That means 494 babies probably started unnecessary treatments. There are heartbreaking stories on the internet of mothers who were told to “stop breastfeeding” because of a positive screening only to be told later after their milk had dried up. Whoops! It was a false positive.
Although many in the medical community would have you to believe that not participating in blood screening is highly dangerous, I adamantly disagree. The diseases that are screened for are rare, genetic diseases not the more common communicable diseases. Dr. Norman Frost, a professor of pediatrics and director of the program in medical ethics at the University of Wisconsin, said in a quote to the New York Times: “The majority of newborn screenings have failed. Thousands of normal kids have been killed or gotten brain damage by screening tests and treatments that turned out to be ineffective and very dangerous.” Treating infants who have no symptoms of disease simply because of a positive test result is at best a questionable practice, but to have this practice forced upon families by the state is simply unconscionable.
A reader from the Sioux City Journal wrote on Oct 26, 2007 11:33 PM:
http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/articles/2007/10/20/news/nebraska/9ef0c64503ce08658625737a000e9cf2.txt
“ No family should have to go through such a traumatic event. Let’s hope this is resolved quickly so other families don’t have to go through this. My oldest child, by the way, still has a scar on her foot from the heel stick. It is a mark slightly larger than a pencil eraser, round and red, and she is 11 years old. When one pediatrician looked at her foot a year or two ago, they asked what the mark was. I told them, and they ADAMANTLY denied that it was a result from the prick. I explained that I KNOW my child. I have bathed and changed my child since birth. I watched as the scar never healed, I asked doctors who didn’t have an answer, and I watched over the years as the mark never faded or went away. Had I known the facts like Mrs. Anaya had, I would probably never have allowed such a painful and invasive procedure that has left a lasting mark.”
Another story given to me.
“My name is (removed) and on July 22, 2006 I gave birth to my baby boy at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Hospital personnel insisted that we stay until my baby was 24 hours old, so that they could draw blood to screen for various diseases. We did not want it done, but they said it was the law. We asked her to explain what she was going to do. She explained that she had a card with dots that must be filled with blood. She said that 5 dots needed 2 drops on each and then the 6th larger dot must be completely filled with blood. She slit his heel with a scalpel and she repeatedly squeezed and squeezed his heel trying to get enough blood out to fill the card. He screamed during the blood draw and for over half an hour afterwards he would not calm down. His incision took two weeks to heal. The hospital personnel told me that it would not hurt my baby, instead it was very traumatic for my baby and for me.”
The test is not just 5 drops of blood. The smallest test is filling 5 circles on a filter paper with blood. The infant’s heel is cut with a variety of methods. I’ve heard of scalpels and straight razors, although now most places have a kinder device that provides the heel prick. Then the baby’s heel is squeezed repeatedly over each circle until the circle is filled with blood. It may take 2-5 squeezes per circle. Of course, the baby screams through it all. Bruising is quite common. If you receive the full scale screening as opposed to only what is mandated by law, then your tiny baby will have to suffer enough to fill one or more vials with blood.
Joel’s personal statistical chance of having a disease was significantly less than the average. He had 9 healthy fully biological siblings. He was nearly six weeks old and was given a physical that morning. Joel never had any feeding problems. He was at the 50th percentile for both height and weight. My husband is only 5’5” so we aren’t expecting overly large babies here. At our hearing with our daughter Rosa at 2 months, the state’s expert witness admitted that half of the diseases screened for could be eliminated for a baby who had no symptoms at that age.
So we are looking at definite trauma vs. about a 1 in 100,000 chance of disease.
Other facts about the diseases:
All are non-contagious and non-preventable. A positive screening result means that more testing must be done because of the high false positive rate. Once a definitive diagnosis is made, then treatment may be started. This often takes weeks or months. Usually by then, symptoms are beginning to manifest.
Family History
Oldest 2 children- not born in Nebraska. Oldest now 20-he went to college at 14, graduated at 17 with 2 degrees-youngest graduate ever of that University. 2nd oldest 17, sophomore at same university on the dean’s list.
Next 5 children-homebirthed in Nebraska.
Our first encounter with Nebraska’s newborn screening program was over 14 years ago. A couple weeks after a peaceful homebirth, we received a certified letter telling us to take our new baby to a laboratory for blood screening. We checked into the law and found no enforcement provision. We discussed the matter with others who had refused the screening and were told that we would be ignored or perhaps fined for non-compliance. However, we recognized that we may need to prove that we were not simply being neglectful. So we researched the Bible for Scriptures that related to the issue, prepared a statement, and had it notarized. Nothing happened then. We had more homebirths. We were ignored five times in a row. After most births we received two certified letters about the law. One time we received 3 notices.
Then after the birth of our 8th child, 6th born in Nebraska we received a subpoena to District Court when she was 2 months old. Apparently that had been added to the enforcement provision of the statute. We found a lawyer and fought it. That lawyer fought it based on the First Amendment free exercise of religion. The case was only heard by the local district court judge who understood nothing about the case and the Nebraska Supreme Court. The Nebraska Supreme Court moved the case from the appeals court and although we appealed the US Supreme Court did not hear the case.
With our 9th child, Justus, 2 years ago I drove across the Iowa border in active labor to avoid the situation. In Iowa. a waiver is included with the birth registration packet.
For the past 2 legislative sessions, State Senator Synowiecki has proposed exemption legislation. The 2nd time we had high hopes. We had more people testifying in favor of the bill than against, signed testimonies of the trauma the screening had caused other parents, and a petition signed by over 100 people. There were only a couple of testimonies from the state against the bill. However, it was killed in the health and human services committee and so never made it to the floor for a vote.
ghoward@leg.ne.gov;
thansen@leg.ne.gov;
perdman@leg.ne.gov;
jjohnson@leg.ne.gov;
astuthman@leg.ne.gov;
tgay@leg.ne.gov;
dpankonin@leg.ne.gov
Due to various reasons, Joel ended up being born in Nebraska. Believe me, if I had any idea this would have happened, I would have made more of an effort to have him in Iowa.
Joel was born on September 2. We immediately found a lawyer. On September 19th we received a certified letter telling us about the screening law and giving us until September 21st to test. Then, we received a phone call from Newborn Screening asking if we would test. We replied “no”. She asked if I knew what would happen next. I replied “yes” understanding that we would be subpoenaed into district court as stated in the statute.
In the meantime, we hoped to be ignored, but discussed new legal arguments with our lawyer. Weeks went by without hearing anything. We decided that they must have chosen to return to ignoring us.
Then, on the morning of October 11th just after I had gotten Joel up from his morning nap, my doorbell rang. When I answered the door, an armed sheriff’s deputy came barging into my house yelling that he had a court order for Joel Anaya. I was screaming that I had not given him permission to enter my home. He said that he had a court order. I said that I wanted to call my lawyer. He said, “There’s no time.” There were 2 other deputies with guns and clubs guarding my doorways. He heard my children downstairs and ran downstairs where all my young children were. He snatched Joel out of my son’s arms and headed for the door. Joel was fussing and I knew he hadn’t eaten in 3 hours. I begged to be allowed to nurse him. The deputy told me, “There is no time. He will be cared for by professionals.” He ran out the door with my baby leaving me begging to nurse my baby and yelling for my son to call the lawyer. It was a cold day and the CPS people were not there yet to hand the baby over to, so the weather forced him back inside. I was crying and pleading to nurse.
My husband came home from the store just then. The sheriff deputies blocked him from entering our home. The way our rights were trampled by the sheriff deputies and the Department of Health still astounds me. I relive the scene again and again.
You are in my prayers.
No subpoena? So what is this, kidnapping by the State?
I hope these people in the system will be in a world of hurt for not following the law. It wouldn't surprise me if they lied to the Judge saying that you were subpoenaed but didn't comply...watch out, they can falsify documents too...
I hope you take the time to read all of post #77. I did not think this site allowed personal attacks. Saying that I am not a “decent human being” when you do not know the circumstances is not fair debate. My husband and I happen to be the founders of the largest food pantry in our metropolitan area. www.missionfan.com. We have lots of support in our city and no one who knows us personally would ever make such an accusation. People here, including the social workers who visited our home, sided with us-not the judge.
Joel was statistically in more danger being denied breastmilk, having a blood draw, and being placed in foster care for 6 days than by the extremely remote possibility of having a genetic disease. Remember, he was already 6 weeks old when half of the diseases could be eliminated and had 9 healthy older siblings. There is absolutely no basis for saying that this was done for his benefit. All evidence show s that Joel was in fact traumatized by the whole process.
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