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And nursing mothers want their babies to stay with them: SAN ANGELO, Texas -- Mothers in the polygamous FLDS sect on Monday filed a motion for a temporary restraining order demanding access to attorneys, privacy in prayer and a halt to Texas child-welfare workers plans to separate them from their breast-feeding children.
Though filed specifically on behalf of four Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints mothers, the TRO is meant to include other mothers fighting to stop the state from taking their toddlers, who were taken from the sect's YFZ Ranch earlier this month.
Texas Child Protective Services (CPS) officials have repeatedly said they plan to separate all 416 children taken from the ranch -- including those under 2 who are currently breast-feeding -- once DNA testing determines maternity. That genetic screening began today. Texas Judge Barbara Walther set an afternoon hearing to further discuss the TRO motions.
The TRO also claims that since state officials have seized all cell phones from mothers and their children, they have no means to confer with attorneys. Further, despite CPS assurances that telephone access would be provided, that has yet to happen, the mothers argue.
Let's assume the very worst we possibly can about these mothers. No matter how bad they might be (and they can't be that bad, or the state wouldn't have let them stay with their children all this time)- should the state be permitted to hinder their ability to telephone their attorneys?
The judge also received 35 habeas corpus petitions representing the seized children "illegally restrained" by CPS. Those documents were filed on April 15, but were not available until Monday.
In yet another FLDS raid-related development, coordinating attorneys, legal aid attorneys and guardians ad litem announced an undisclosed number of 20-30 young women whose adult status had been debated had indeed been determined to be legally adults.
Can you imagine how you would feel if the government had held you against your will, insisted you'd been 'raped' and threatened to separate you from your children forever because you are under-age and have children- and all along you are actually a 23 year old adult? Would you ever trust CPS again?
CPS took away 416 children from their families and from the ranch because they 'observed' underaged 'children' with children. Only it turns out they were wrong. Do you see Angie Voss examining herself to see if maybe just maybe, she might have been wrong about anything else?
Updated: The judge has no such reasoning processes going on. In spite of the gross misjudgment from CPS workers about the ages of these women and their honesty, the judge declines to rule on the issue of separating breastfed mothers from their babies:
"The judge said she would leave it up to CPS officials and the attorneys to work something out on the breast-feeding. The attorneys, however, replied that they have so far been unable to come up with a workable agreement. "
Can the adult women charge their captors with kidnapping?
10 comments:
I'm just trying to figure out how 13 year olds having sex in a compound means that they should be taken by the state, but no one questions that my 13yo students having sex should get to live at home.
"In yet another FLDS raid-related development, coordinating attorneys, legal aid attorneys and guardians ad litem announced an undisclosed number of 20-30 young women whose adult status had been debated had indeed been determined to be legally adults."
Infuriating. I'm nearly 24 years old, married, and pregnant. I'm actually a little embarrassed now that I'm starting to show, because when I moved to a new church in the last year, I was constantly asked if I was in the teen ministry. No doubt I still look like a teenager -- but would CPS believe that I didn't forge my birth certificate so I could get married?
My heart breaks for the women who are still nursing their babies. I don't understand how CPS can do this to families.
It just gets "worser" and "worser" - I'm so glad you're keeping up with this for us. You deserve a big ole bunch of kudos for it.
I'm too busy explaining the pregnant "man" that ABC News chose to cover. Kiddo was over at his Granny's and saw the story when she watched the news. (She still actually trusts the alphabet networks.)
Thanks, ABC News, for covering what once was only fodder for the Enquirer.
I have asked Connor Boyack, the originator of the petition, to form FreeTheChildren.org. But I don't know if he will feel guided to step beyond the leadership he has already shown.
If not, would you be willing to do so possibly along the lines suggested at:
http://miraclesdaily.blogspot.com/
I would be willing to contribute articles and suggestions. I am a Christian minister who is deeply concerned about abusive Child Protective Services in various states. (But I don't have the computer skills.)
The Free the Children Movement is picking up steam (I hope).
There weren't any families there. It was a concentration camp--a little worse--some of the women had been tortured from childhood into liking it.
"The judge said she would leave it up to CPS officials and the attorneys to work something out on the breast-feeding"
This is hillarious. CPS does not "work something out." If they have decided that the women are a danger to their children, they will NOT allow ANY contact, unless it is in a completely supervised setting, not exactly conducive to breast-feeding. And, you might ask yourselves, if the mothers were such a danger, why were they allowed to ride along with the children and stay with them for several days in complete contravention of the way CPS normally does business?
"I'm just trying to figure out how 13 year olds having sex in a compound means that they should be taken by the state, but no one questions that my 13yo students having sex should get to live at home."
Chelsea, I'm going to go a quarter inch out on a 10" thick tree limb here and say that I bet, per capita, more of your 13 year old students are having sex than at the FLDS "compound".
How sad. The girls are told to do exactly what they are told from the moment they can talk..so when they are told at 13 to have sex with their 58 year old uncle ....they do. Then they have a boy and when he gets to be in his early teens (a threat to the old men) they are taken and dropped off in a city with no money no education NO ONE!! And their moms watch it happen and say nothing because that is just how it is. How sad. I know.
Anonymous, once more, I am not saying FLDS is pure as the driven snow. I am not saying there is no abuse happening. I am not saying that abuse should not be prosecuted.
But I think people should be charged and prosecuted of crimes which we have some evidence they specifically might be involved in, not for beliefs, however unsavory.
All the 'Lost Boys' I have read about so far come from the Arizona community. This group is in Texas. If they have dumped any of their boys, but all means charge them, but thus far no authorities have even hinted this is the case.
There are NO 13 year old girls from this community shown to be pregnant, mothers, or in any way involved sexually with anybody, let alone 58 year old men, uncles or otherwise.
The state has presented ten girls, all over the age of 16, they say are in 'spiritual marriages.' Five of the girls, from 16-19 are pregnant or have a child (or children, I don't know). If it can be proven that the adult fathers of those children are guilty (if it's a 20 year old father and the marriage is monogamous, even this is not illegal in Texas), then by all means charge them. But this is not enough evidence to remove the 416 children of 19 households.
I balk at the government moving in and taking away children from religious cultures that I find controlling in belief rather than abusive in practice. The problem with deciding this religious practice is illegal because it's 'controlling' is that this is a subjective term, and while I might agree that the FLDS is too controlling, one of these days somebody will decide television free families are too controlling, or families who homeschool, or families who go to church every week....
Anebo,
A concentration camp? Based on all of the reports I've read (and yes, I've read plenty that hail the trial's outcome as the best thing that could happen to the children), it was never proven that abuse was widespread. The only thing that was proven to be widespread was a religious belief.
In this country, you're allowed to believe anything you want to; you're punished for actions, not for holding certain beliefs and not for speaking on those beliefs. How many actions were abusive? There may be reason to believe that abuse was actually going on, but why were these cases never tried individually, rather than collectively?
And more disturbing, I actually haven't heard any concrete claims that any of these children were actually abused. Yes, one of the women who escaped the compound has some pretty horrific stories to tell; the man who tortured his children to "break" them ought to be punished severely, assuming what the girl says is true. But what was found in this trial? Hearsay that a girl as young as 13 was married, maybe some older girls who must have been underage when they had a child. But nothing was even brought up about abuse to those infants, except claims in media reports that apparently never made it to the trial. This is not how the American judicial system is supposed to operate. People are innocent until proven guilty.
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