Vermont accused pregnant women of being considered unfit mothers

A lawsuit filed this week alleges that a Vermont child welfare agency used unfounded allegations to secretly investigate a pregnant woman’s mental health and place her in foster care before she gave birth.

The ACLU of Vermont and the national advocacy group 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 in February 2022.

In the lawsuit, the state is accused of routinely tracking pregnant women deemed unfit to mother.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified monetary damages for the woman, identified only by her initials AV, to end what she describes as an illegal surveillance program.

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In January 2022, the director of the homeless shelter where Evie lived told the Child Welfare Agency that she had untreated paranoia, dissociative behavior and PTSD, according to the lawsuit. The state began investigating and eventually contacted the woman’s counselor, midwife and hospital social worker without her knowledge, even though he had no jurisdiction over the fetus.

ACLU senior staff attorney Harrison Stark said the woman was unaware of the diagnosis until after she gave birth, and her daughter was immediately taken away.

AV had no idea that hospital officials were providing the state with updates while she was in labor, including details of cervical dilatation, and that she had lost temporary custody of the child. The state sought a court order forcing the woman to have a cesarean section because the woman had consented to the operation.

After seven months, the woman lost full custody of her son.

“It’s a horrible set of circumstances for our customers,” Stark said. “It is also clear from what has happened that this is not the first time the agency has done this. We have learned from multiple confidential sources that DCF has a practice and practice of looking at clients who are pregnant and interested. In the agency’s unofficial requirements and the agency’s ‘high pregnancy docket’ or ‘high pregnancy date Who is keeping track of the so-called ‘counting’?

Chris Winter, commissioner of the Department of Children and Families, said the agency will not comment on the allegations until it has reviewed and investigated the allegations.

“We take our mission to protect children and support families seriously and work hard to balance the safety and security of children with 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 news reports.

“We take these matters 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.

Many states across the country allow civil commitment that allows pregnant women to control their newborns, said Kulsom Ijaz, senior staff attorney for Pregnancy Justice. However, it is unclear how common these conditions are in the US.

Ejaz said what happened to Evie shows how pregnancy is increasingly used as a justification for denying people their rights.

The organization’s report in September showed an increase in women charged with pregnancy-related crimes after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, allowing states to set their own abortion laws. Most of the cases where the child is listed as a victim involve women accused of child abuse, neglect or endangerment due to drug use during pregnancy.

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“What DCF did here is incredibly cruel,” Ijaz said. “It’s discriminatory. The state allows surveillance and monitoring, and it violates Vermont’s newly enacted reproductive autonomy in the state constitution. This is an opportunity for Vermont as a leader to signal to other states that these rights don’t exist. They only exist on paper, and they exist in practice.”

Stark said the allegations in Vermont are particularly troubling because the state has touted itself as a haven for reproductive rights.

“It’s incredibly shocking to find that a government agency is colluding with certain medical providers to collect data without people’s knowledge or consent and illegally expand its power to base decisions about their own reproductive health,” he said. .

The Associated Press contributed to this report.