This week, a lawsuit was filed against the suspects Vermont’s Child Welfare Agency of using unfounded allegations about a pregnant woman’s mental health to secretly investigate her and gain custody of her daughter before the baby’s birth.
The ACLU of Vermont and Pregnancy Justice, a national advocacy group, filed the lawsuit Wednesday against the Vermont Department for Children and Families, a counseling center and the hospital where the woman gave birth in February 2022.
The lawsuit also faces accusations that the state routinely tracks pregnant women deemed unfit to become mothers.
The lawsuit asks for unspecified monetary damages for the woman, who can only be identified by her initials, AV, and an end to what it describes as an illegal surveillance program.
PREGNANT WOMAN AND BABY SAVED AFTER DOCTORS FIND TUMOR IN LARGE GRAPEFRUIT: ‘EXTREMELY RARE’
A copy of the lawsuit against the Vermont Department for Children and Families. (Google Maps; Vermont Supreme Court)
The director of a homeless shelter where AV stayed in January 2022 told the child welfare agency that she appeared to be suffering from untreated paranoia, dissociative behavior and PTSD, according to the lawsuit. The state began an investigation and eventually spoke to the hospital’s counselor, midwife, and a social worker without her knowledge, even though the state had no jurisdiction over fetuses.
The woman remained unaware of the investigation until she gave birth and her daughter was immediately taken away, said Harrison Stark, senior staff attorney for the ACLU.
AV was unaware that hospital officials were providing updates to the state while she was in laborincluding details of the dilation of her cervix, and that she had lost temporary custody of her baby. The state even requested a court order to force the woman to undergo a cesarean section, although this was questioned because she agreed to the operation.
Only seven months later was the woman able to gain full custody of her child.
“It’s a terrible set of circumstances for our client,” Stark said. “It is also clear from what happened that this is not the first time the agency has done this. We have learned from several confidential sources that DCF has a pattern and practice of investigating people of interest like our client who are pregnant. to the agency based on a set of unofficial criteria and who the agency maintains based on what is called a “high-risk pregnancy list” or “high-risk pregnancy calendar.”
Children and Families Commissioner Chris Winter said the agency will not comment until officials review the lawsuit and investigate the allegations.
“We take our mission to protect children and support families seriously and work hard to balance the safety and well-being of children with the rights of parents,” he said.
Officials at Lund’s counseling center, which was named as a suspect, said they learned of the allegations from news reports.
The ACLU of Vermont and Pregnancy Justice filed the lawsuit Wednesday against the Vermont Department for Children and Families, a counseling center and the hospital where the woman gave birth. (Getty Images)
“We take these matters very seriously and we are actively working to gather more information to fully understand the situation,” said interim CEO Ken Schatz.
Copley Hospital has not commented on the lawsuit.
Several states across the country allow the civil commitment of pregnant women to take custody of a newborn, said Kulsoom Ijaz, senior staff attorney for Pregnancy Law. However, it is unclear how often these situations occur in the US
Ijaz said what happened with AV shows how pregnancy is increasingly being used as a justification to block people’s rights.
The organization released a report in September reporting an increase in the number of women accused pregnancy-related crimes in the year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, allowing states to make their own laws regarding abortion. Most of these cases, which listed the baby as a victim, involved women accused of child abuse, neglect or child endangerment due to allegations of substance use during pregnancy.
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This photo shows the logo of the American Civil Liberties Union. (KAREN BLEIER/AFP via Getty Images)
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“What DCF did here is incredibly cruel,” Ijaz said. ‘It’s discriminatory. The state has sanctioned surveillance and stalking, and it violates Vermont’s newly enshrined right to reproductive autonomy in the state constitution. This is an opportunity for Vermont as a leader to send a signal to other states and say that these rights don’t exist just on paper. They also exist in practice.”
Stark said the allegations in Vermont are particularly troubling because the state has described itself as a haven for reproductive rights.
“It is incredibly alarming to discover evidence that a government agency is essentially working with certain medical providers to gather information without people’s knowledge or consent and unlawfully expand its jurisdiction to investigate people based on what are essentially decisions about their own reproductive health,” he said. .
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
