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  • 2016-06-17 (xsd:date)
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  • Alabama CPS 'Medical Kidnap' (id)
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  • In June 2016 the notoriously unreliable web site Health Impact News published an article reporting that agents of Alabama's child protective services (CPS) had stormed a hospital and taken a newborn baby away from its 14-year-old mother solely because the child was conceived during a rape: As described, the chain of events indeed sounded harrowing. Each police officer and Alabama Department of Human Resources (DHR) official involved in the incident was depicted or mentioned by name, and Health Impact News added an update reporting that the young mother and her twin brother were also taken into state custody: We contacted Alabama's CPS department with the expectation that the agency would be unable to comment on the specifics of the case, and as is frequently the case with such rumors, the individual with whom we spoke stated that the agency could not provide any details due to the nature of the claims. However, that representative told us that under Alabama state law, the agency has 72 hours to present a case to a judge proving that removal of a child or children from the care of parents or guardians is in the best interest of the minor[s], and Alabama law indeed holds [PDF] that: The same laws provide for removal as a last resort in any open case: Per Alabama state law, child protective services agents must offer all appropriate services to prevent removal of [a] child, unless that child is in immediate danger of harm or threatened harm. Presumably, state workers will be obliged to present evidence that summary removal was necessary within the 72-hour window mandated by the state. Stories like the Alabama CPS claim achieve viral traction on social media in large part because child protection agencies are prohibited by law from commenting on individual cases, making it very difficult for independent sources to challenge one-sided stories presented online. In one notable instance, Health Impact News and Medical Kidnap heavily publicized, without critical examination, a family's false claim that CPS agents had taken their children simply because they opted for a homebirth. CPS agencies are often painted as capriciously snatching children without valid cause, and media blackouts or suppression are then cited as the reason for a lack of news coverage of such reports (rather than that news organizations might be cautious about running with unverifiable, one-sided stories): News outlets are generally unable to verify a family's claims in any given CPS dispute, which creates the risk of unwarranted public alarm being generated from incidents that have practical and reasonable explanations. It's possible that the child removals in the case cited here were tied to a 14-year-old girl's traumatic assault, but it's equally possible CPS agents sought summary removal of all three children for entirely different reasons. (en)
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