Hospital Seizes Newborn From Mom And You Won’t Believe Why
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A newborn baby was taken from a Pennsylvania woman by police and a social worker, and the mom is now speaking up.
The mom, Jodi Ferris, recounted the story in a podcast posted this month on the Home School Legal Defense Association’s website.
The social worker and police officers took the baby
from Ferris at the Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, Pa., just hours after birth, allegedly because the mom refused to let the baby get a vaccination and because she preferred natural childbirth over hospital delivery. The workers reportedly kept the baby
girl for around 48 hours and only let Ferris see the infant every few
hours. The infant was eventually returned to Ferris and her husband,
Scott, but only after a court order.
“That afternoon a social worker and two police officers came to the hospital and took our baby and kicked us out of the hospital,” Ferris said in the HSLDA podcast. She and Scott had to go to court and get a court order to be able to see their daughter.
Ferris thinks the infant was taken from her because she refused to let the child be vaccinated for Hepatitis B, according to The Minot Daily News. The baby was born in an ambulance in the medical center parking lot
after Ferris was rushed there in premature labor. Ferris had wanted to
give birth at home but couldn’t because her midwife could not arrive in
time.
Belief in Alternative Medical Care May Have Led to Removal
“They just didn’t like the fact that you
had told them you had intended to have a home birth,” HSDLA Chairman
Michael P. Farris said of the incident. (He is not related to Jodi or
Scott.) “In the minds of some hospital staff, some social workers and
some law enforcement personnel, parents are suspect number one right out
of the gate.”
The HSDLA chairman believes Ferris’s daughter was taken because her parents had chosen alternative medical care. Ferris said the hospital staff members became angry because she had challenged their authority.
“I think the hospital staff took our
wanting information as a challenge to their authority,” Jodi Ferris
said. “One nurse told us that she took our questions as a personal
attack against her qualifications as a nurse.”
“The hospital’s attitude was we’re the
experts so just do what we tell you,” Jodi Ferris said. “It bothers me
that the doctors and the hospital were offended by our questions and
used the so-called emergency removal to override our decisions just
because they disagreed with us.”
Staff Lied to Parents of Newborn Daughter
Ferris also accused hospital staff of
lying to her about her daughter. She claims that staff members told her
that her daughter was dying when the girl was really healthy.
“At first they told me that I wasn’t
allowed to see her because she had almost died and they were still
working on her,” Ferris said of her daughter. In reality the daughter
was healthy and was actually being given a bath. Scott Ferris was
watching the supposedly dying baby being bathed as her mother worried.
Parents Forced to Spend the Night in Walmart Parking Lot
It was after these incidents that police and a social worker came to Jodi’s room and escorted her out of the hospital. Jodi claims that the social worker had tried to force her to sign a “safety plan.” The plan supposedly involved vaccinations to which Ferris objected. If she did not agree to the safety plan and to “whatever the hospital wanted,” she would lose custody of her baby, she was told.
After leaving the hospital the Ferrises had to spend the night in their car in a Walmart parking lot. The next day the couple was able to obtain a court order that forced the hospital staff to release the baby to them.
Jodi Ferris claims that the hospital staff did everything she opposed including giving her daughter a Hepatitis B vaccination. The staff never performed the test.
“We won in court but by the time we got back to her the hospital had done everything we objected to,” Ferris said.
Parental Rights at Risk
The Home School Legal Defense
Association has taken the case because Michael P. Ferris believes that
parents’ right to make decisions about children’s medical care is at
risk. The Association wants to get a clear court ruling that would
prevent incidents like this in the future.
The HSLDA filed a civil rights lawsuit on behalf of Scott and Jodi Ferris. A federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled in favor of the couple and threw out a motion by the hospital
to dismiss the case. That means the Ferris case will proceed and could
establish an important legal precedent protecting parents to make
decisions about children’s medical care.