Fran Lyon, a woman in Great Britain will have her baby taken from her at birth because the state has deemed her to be a risk to the baby. This has been done based on a report from a pediatrician the woman has never met, concerning a mental illness they now consider to be a “fabricated and invented illness:
Hexham children’s services, part of Northumberland County Council, said the decision had been made because Miss Lyon was likely to suffer from Munchausen’s Syndrome by proxy, a condition unproven by science in which a mother will make up an illness in her child, or harm it, to draw attention to herself.
Under the plan, a doctor will hand the newborn to a social worker, provided there are no medical complications. Social services’ request for an emergency protection order – these are usually granted – will be heard in secret in the family court at Hexham magistrates on the same day.
As I was reading this article, I kept asking myself, “What has this woman done to cause the state to act in such a way? What actions has she taken to deem her a risk to this baby?” I was astonished to find the reason for their concern:
Miss Lyon came under scrutiny because she had a mental health problem when she was 16 after being physically and emotionally abused by her father and raped by a stranger.
That’s it. She needed counseling after being beaten by the one man who should have protected her, and she needed counseling after being raped. What makes the state’s actions even more disgusting is the comments Ms. Lyon’s counselor made about her.
Dr Stella Newrith, a consultant psychiatrist, who treated Miss Lyon for her childhood trauma for a year, wrote to Northumberland social services stating: “There has never been any clinical evidence to suggest that Fran would put herself or others at risk, and there is certainly no evidence to suggest that she would put a child at risk of emotional, physical or sexual harm.”
There is no reason for this save one: filling quotas on adoptions.
The case adds to growing concern, highlighted in a series of articles in The Sunday Telegraph, over a huge rise in the number of babies under a year old being taken from parents. The figure was 2,000 last year, three times the number 10 years ago.
Critics say councils are taking more babies from parents to help them meet adoption “targets”.
From the link in the above quote:
In 2000, Tony Blair set a target for councils to increase adoptions by 50 per cent. Town halls were promised cash rewards for reaching their goals. Critics claim that the target has given social workers a perverse incentive to break up more families. Mr Hemming said: “There are clearly masses of miscarriages of justice, but ministers want to prevent parents from campaigning against them by preventing these parents from talking about their children after a case.”
So the state is taking a record number of babies to give to other families in order to get cash rewards from the federal government for reaching adoption goals. Yet another example of the unintended consequences of government intervention.
I hope and pray this woman gets to keep her baby. There is no reason for a person in a supposed free country to have to fight to keep her baby when there is no evidence of abuse. This is an outrage.
