Judge Denies Request to Keep FLDS Mothers with Nursing Children
April 22, 2008 by Angela White, J.D., breastfeeding counselor
Filed under activism, breastfeeding, health of the baby, law
On Monday, April 21, 2008, a Texas judge denied a request for a temporary restraining order (TRO) that would have kept mothers from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) with their nursing children who are in state custody. Of the 437 children placed in Child Protective Services (CPS) for being in danger of sexual and emotional abuse, 77 children are under age two. CPS workers had said they planned to place the children in foster care once DNA testing is complete sometime later this week, but it appears that the process of moving the children from shelters to other locations has already begun. Mothers who are minors will be placed with their babies, but other mothers have already been separated from their children. Update: The Salt Lake Tribune updated the story on Thursday with the article FLDS: Mothers, children separated.
The Salt Lake Tribune reported on the judge’s decision to deny the TRO after yesterday afternoon’s hearing:
[Judge] Walther acknowledged the nutritional and bonding benefits of breast-feeding. “But every day in this country, we have mothers who go back to work after six weeks of maternity leave,” she said. “The court has made a determination that the environment those children were in was not safe,” said Walther, adding that there is a shortage of suitable placements for infants in Texas.
The judge said she would leave it up to CPS officials and the attorneys to work something out on the breast-feeding. The attorneys, however, said so far they’ve been unable to come to agreement.
Shari Pulliam, a spokeswoman for CPS, said the agency plans to proceed with plans to send the women home. “We don’t place adult women in foster care,” she said. “Our main thing is to protect children from abuse and neglect.”
Some breastfeeding proponents have rallied around the FLDS mothers. Certified lactation counselor Nicole D. Hoff has set up a website, FLDS Children Have Right to Breastmilk, on which she says:
This site [is] about the FLDS babies that deserve breast milk and the mothers that are breastfeeding for their children. This site is about the nutritional and bonding benefits of breastfeeding. The site is not about polygamy, not about religion, not about abuse. It is not my place to judge where or not the children should be, or who the children should be with. This is about making sure the children that were breastfeeding continue to have optimal nutrition, breast milk.
What would you like to see happen? Do you think the judge should have allowed the breastfeeding mothers to remain with their children in state custody? Should supervised breastfeeding visits be allowed? Should the mothers be allowed to have their expressed breast milk fed to their children in custody? It’s easy to say that everyone should keep the best interests of the children in mind, but obviously not everyone is in agreement about what is in the best interests of the children.
Oh, Angela, I just don’t know! I’ve worried about these kids since Day One. I don’t know if they were being abused and I don’t know if their religion is “right” or “wrong,” but I do know that this is looking like it’s going to be a long battle, and the mental shock of being taken from their homes and their families has probably been horrendous. Add to that a whole new diet (i.e. no more breast milk) and, wow, I just really have them in my prayers.
The phone call that started the whole thing was a phony–it was traced to Colorado. They have found five teenage girls pregant. They are sixteen and seventeen years old. One of the seventeen year olds is married to another seventeen year old, so that one is out in my opinion. So that leaves four possible cases of abuse. Remove 77 nurslings, a total of 437 children over 4 cases? This is crazy, each child needs a hearing to determine if abuse has taken place. When abuse has been proven, then the child can be removed, not before. To deprive a child of breastmilk (or even just mama) before abuse has been proven is uncalled for.
Well… outside of the right/wrong religious issues, I think at a bare minimum the mothers should be allowed to pump and have their baby fed the breastmilk. I am not in a position to say if they are/were/will be abused, but no matter what, the child should be able to have the healthiest and best food provided to him/her.
The breast fed babies should be allowed to continue to get breastmilk. I also think those cases should be sped up in the courts so that those kids can be reunited with thier moms sooner.
I do think it was wrong to take all those kids away from thier families. I didn’t think it was so bad when they kept the moms and kids together but now that they are seperated I just don’t see how it’s legal. I am really bothered by this story and the power that our goverment seems to wield.
i agree. i think this is a terrifying disregard of lives and families. based on a phony call! it makes me so sick to think of those kids not getting the breast milk, being taken from their parents. sad, sad, sad.
Abuse is abuse. Breast milk is great for nutrition but abuse hurts the soul and the upbringing and the life of the child. Anyone who sees breast milk as a reason to leave these children in abusive situations is SICK! Shame on you.
Texas has done the right thing by these children. The only hope for all of them, is to take them away from an abuse enviroment. Young children have the greatest hope of escaping this, and becoming productive parts of our world. Why would you want to hold them back from an oportunity for a better life. Breast milk will not save these children, but a different future might!
The babies aren’t in the danger of any abuse. These women aren’t high on drugs and alcohol. No evidence of cigarette smoking. Isolate those nursing cases, and let the mothers nurse there babies and tend them. They would be better that way.
As to the religious view, ruling by fear isn’t Gospel. But not to fire anyone up – this is a day of whatever you want to do for sex too. So they are Polygamous oriented – better than marrying and divorcing and marrying and divorcing, so on so on. Or one relationship after another, with multiple partners who might do more harm to a child.
I don’t think anyone really feels that a child should be kept in an abusive situation just to receive his/her mother’s breast milk. Rather, I think the point here is that the temporary restraining order would have allowed the children to continue receiving the breast milk (in a safe environment – state custody) until the courts have actually determined whether or not abuse is actually happening – which, I think we should all remember, hasn’t been determined yet beyond our own opinions.