Family Rights and Child Abuse News

Health precautions: Complaints lead to clearing of building

by Susan Latham Carr

As air testing was being conducted Friday, employees from the state Department of Children & Families' West Silver Springs Boulevard office were packing boxes to leave forever the building they fear may be a "sick" building.

A number of employees have experienced headaches, difficulty breathing, eye irritation, light-headedness, sneezing, nausea, coughs and sore throats and are concerned that the building may be to blame for their symptoms.

Six employees have filed air quality complaints and three have filed workers' compensation complaints. One of the employees is a pregnant woman. Another was told by her doctor not to return to the building.

Ocala News (FL)

August 12, 2006

Judge lifts order for cancer treatment

A judge ruled today a Virginia teen who has refused chemotherapy for his cancer does not have to report to a hospital as previously ordered by a court.

Sixteen-year-old Abraham Cherrix, who suffers from Hodgkin's disease, has been seeking an alternative treatment amid threats the government will take him away from his family. Accomack County Circuit Court Judge Glen A. Taylor set aside an order by a juvenile court requiring Abraham to report to a hospital today. The judge set a trial date of Aug. 16.

World Net Daily (VA)

July 25, 2006

Who Owns Your Child? - Part 2

by Sherri Tenpenny

Parent Rights and the Foundation for Medical Neglect - When it comes to making decisions about their children, parents have few rights, as demonstrated by the Abraham Cherrix case and others.

The concept of the State control of children came from antiquity when Plato first suggested the mechanism for a state-provided public education. He advocated removing children from their parents' care and raising them as wards of the State. It is interesting that in 1918, at the congress of the Communist Party education workers in Russia it was asserted, "We must remove the children from the crude influence of their families."

News With Views

July 25, 2006

The Case of Marie and Her Sons

by Daniel Bergner

"To whom it may concern," she typed, "I am writing to you to appeal for the return of my children." Marie lost her kids, all of them boys, to the State of Connecticut more than a year ago.

The Stamford office of Connecticut's Department of Children and Families has placed the boys in an array of shelters and foster homes; it has recently found potential adoptive parents for four of them; and earlier this month it filed a petition to end Marie's role and rights as a mother. If the department, known as D.C.F., succeeds in court, she will lose her children forever.

New York Times

July 23, 2006

Girls found starving in basement

WICHITA, Kan. - Police found two young girls in a basement Friday who were so emaciated that an officer compared them to Nazi death camp survivors. Their two stepsiblings were upstairs with their mother, healthy and well fed.

Acting on a tip, state social workers stopped by the south Wichita house Friday to check on the welfare of the children. They then notified the police. "It's the worst case of malnutrition I've ever seen," Lt. E.J. Bastian said. The 6- and 7-year-old girls kept in the basement told police they ate whenever their dad was home. But that wasn't very often.

Barre Montpelier Times Argus (VT)

July 23, 2006