A lawsuit filed this week accuses Vermont’s child welfare agency using unsubstantiated claims about a pregnant woman’s mental health to secretly investigate her and gain custody of her daughter before the child was born.
The ACLU of Vermont and Pregnancy Justice, a national advocacy group, filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Vermont Department of Children and Families, the counseling center and the hospital where the woman gave birth in February 2022.
In the lawsuit, the state also faces accusations that it routinely monitors pregnant women deemed unfit to be mothers.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified monetary damages for the woman, identified only by her initials, AV, and an end to what it describes as an illegal surveillance program.
PREGNANT WOMAN AND BABY SAVED AFTER DOCTORS FOUND TUMOR THE SIZE OF A GRAPEFRUIT: ‘EXTREMELY RARE’
A copy of the lawsuit seen against the Vermont Department of Children and Families. (Google Maps; Vermont Supreme Court)
The director of the homeless shelter where AV was staying in January 2022 told the child welfare agency that she appeared to have untreated paranoia, dissociative behaviors and PTSD, according to the lawsuit. The state began investigating and eventually spoke to the woman’s counselor, midwife and hospital social worker without her knowledge, even though she had no jurisdiction over the fetuses.
The woman was unaware of the investigation until after she gave birth and her daughter was immediately taken away, according to ACLU attorney Harrison Stark.
AV did not know that hospital officials were giving news to the state while she was in laborincluding details of her dilated cervix and that she had temporarily lost custody of her baby. The state even sought a court order to force the woman to have a caesarean section, although it was pointless because she had consented to the operation.
The woman only managed to get full custody of her child seven months later.
“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 screening people like our client who are pregnant, who are of interest to the agency based on a number of unofficial criteria and who the agency tracks on what is called a ‘high-risk pregnancy registry’ or ‘high-risk pregnancy calendar’.”
Department of Children and Families Commissioner Chris Winter said the agency would not comment until officials review the complaint and investigate the allegations.
“We take our mission to protect children and support families seriously and work hard to strike a balance between the safety and well-being of children and the rights of parents,” he said.
Officials at the Lund counseling center, which has been named as a defendant, said they learned of the allegations from newspaper reports.
The ACLU of Vermont and Pregnancy Justice filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Vermont Department of Children and Families, the counseling center and the hospital where the woman gave birth. (Getty Images)
“We take these matters very seriously and 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 civilly binding pregnant women to take custody of a newborn, said Pregnancy Justice senior attorney Kulsoom Ijaz. However, it is not clear how common these situations are in the US
Ijaz said that what happened to AV shows how pregnancy is increasingly being used as a justification for blocking human rights.
In September, the organization published a report detailing an increase in the number of women accused of crimes related to pregnancy in the year after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, allowing states to enact their own abortion laws. Most of those cases, in which the baby was named as the victim, involved women accused of child abuse, neglect or endangerment due to allegations of substance use during pregnancy.
DOCTORS WARN SMOKING AND VAPING HAVE SUCH HARMFUL EFFECTS ON FERTILITY
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 unbelievably cruel,” Ijaz said. “It’s discriminatory. His state has sanctioned surveillance and stalking, and it violates Vermont’s recently established constitutional right to reproductive autonomy. This is an opportunity for Vermont to signal to other states, as a leader, that these rights don’t just exist on paper, they exist and in practice.”
Stark said the allegations in Vermont are particularly troubling because the state has described itself as a haven for reproductive rights.
“To uncover evidence that a government agency is essentially colluding with certain health care providers to collect information without people’s knowledge or consent and illegally expand its authority to investigate people based on what are essentially decisions about their reproductive health is incredibly alarming.” , he said. .
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
