New York City Children’s Services pays $75,000 settlement for removing newborn from home because black mom smokes marijuana — which is legal in New York
New York City Children’s Services pays $75,000 settlement for removing newborn from home because black mom smokes marijuana — which is legal in New York
The judgement in a lawsuit brought by a parent is the first of its kind since marijuana was legalized
“Even after a judge required ACS to reunite Ms. Rivers with her baby, ACS continued to subject Ms. Rivers to needless court proceedings and a litany of conditions that interfered with her parenting of TW for months, while the unlawful removal of her baby was ratified by senior ACS leadership,” the complaint reads. “This was not because ACS was trying to protect TW; this was because Ms. Rivers is Black.”
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People who work in Child Protection aren’t doing it because they’re power hungry sociopaths. They’re people who do an absolutely horrible job for shit pay because they feel compelled to protect children.
I’m not in NY, but I have a friend who works in Child Protection. The shit her and her friends see is fucked up.
In the case here, the baby was born with measurable levels of THC in their system. It’s not illegal to smoke weed while pregnant, just like it’s not illegal to drink alcohol while pregnant - but both can fuck up a child for life before they’re even born.
If it's not illegal to drink alcohol and smoke marijuana, I'd like to understand why she and the baby were tested for pot in the first place.
Because legal or not smoking pot WHILE PREGNANT is bad. Alcohol is legal, would you have a problem with them testing the mother or babies BAC?
Is it? Do you have some documentation of that?
Of course.
The government should not punish 'bad' behavior.
The government does punish when you purposefully harm someone though.
in a liberal, enlightened country, the State does not 'punish' as such behaviour is strictly against the values of enlightenment.
the consequences for a crime aren't a 'punishment' in order to create 'justice', but instead a 'deterrent' designed to deter you from doing whatever the society agreed was undesired.
i recommend 'enlightenment now' by steven pinker as a great read about the ideology of enlightenment and why it's important to keep for the future.
LMFAO no it doesnt. It punishes you when you illegally harm someone
Lots of people raise their kids to be dipshits every single day
No, the government does not punish people, at least not legally, who purposefully harm someone, unless said harm is illegal.
Child endangerment is explicitly a crime.
Yes, it is illegal.
Elaborate please. Are you saying there should be no laws, or no punishment for breaking laws, or something else?
The government should punish lawbreaking behavior. The government should not punish behavior deemed 'bad' by you or by me, unless that behavior is illegal.
It sounds like you're just not familiar with how CPS works, no offense. If a child is being subjected to an unsafe situation they can legally remove a child, whether the conduct rises to the level of illegal conduct or not.
Medical professionals are mandatory reporters (I'm not sure if that's the same legal term in NY, my experiences with CPS have been with several other states). That means they are legally required to notify CPS if they see or THINK they see evidence of abuse. Allegations must be investigated before being acted upon.
I can certainly see why you don't like the fact that the hospital tested the baby for marijuana but if it means they need to modify treatment of the baby they absolutely can do that. Testing the mother may be different, like I said I don't have experience with the NY system.
In short it sounds like you are just not familiar with the standard processes of CPS and are actively interpreting everything in a negative way.
You don't get to randomly drug test random individuals who have no broken the law. That's a violation of human rights. The mother would not have consented to a drug test of her or her baby. Even if they get reported, that isn't probable cause.
Imagine if that were the case. One racist nurse could say that every ethnic mother that comes in smelled like weed, and both mother and child get forcibly drug tested based on that? Do you want to live in that world?
I'm sorry but what you just described is not even close to what was alleged in the article and frankly incorrect on several points. I have no intention of arguing against a strawman, I've made several othee comments in this thread which add context to the situation, you should read them.
Guilty as charged. I am ignorant of how CPS works, except that I used to watch Judging Amy. I'm operating solely on instinct here — I don't trust cops, and this news item has the odor of cops.
That said, most of what you say makes sense, and the concept of mandatory reporters hadn't popped into my head at all, thanks. Assuming it's illegal for children to have cannabis in their blood, I can almost see mandatory reporting coming into play.
Except, we're in New York, where marijuana is legal. Are all hospitals testing all newborns, and seizing them for CPS/APS if they test positive for marijuana? They'd be seizing an awful lot of newborns.
My guess — still utterly uninformed, I'll admit — is that New York newborns are only tested for marijuana if Mom is black and has pissed off the hospital staff.
The article said a nurse witnessed the mother smoking pot in the hospital room, I would err on the side of assuming that was the reason the baby was tested. The article says there is a history of racism at CPS in NY towards black people which yeah, that's an issue. But I'm unwilling to assume that about hospital workers given that the inherent basis of medical work is to treat everyone as best you can regardless of personal feelings.
The article said a nurse witnessed the mother smoking pot in the hospital room, I would err on the side of assuming that was the reason the baby was tested.
Agreed — I can't even muster any doubt that that's why.
Seems a fairly obvious conclusion that she smoked pot in her hospital room, which led someone to order a marijuana test on both mother and child. That test led to the child being taken away.
A quick Googling suggests that the penalty for smoking indoors in New York is a fine of up to $2,000. Seems harsh, but we don't want people smoking indoors, so levy the fine.
It doesn't say that the penalty is losing your child.
Yeah but you're thinking of it as an action being punished. She was not reported to the police for doing something illegal, even though they technically could have. The hospital was not trying to punish her, they were trying to make sure the child was safe. CPS didn't take the child away because the mother smokes pot (see caveat at the end), they took the child away because the mother smoked while pregnant. Not to punish her, to protect the baby.
Caveat: a major point of the article is that CPS had been continuing to use smoking pot as a factor of determining unsafe conditions, which they should not have been doing once pot was made legal. Just like smoking cigarettes is not illegal and shouldn't be a factor in and of itself. However, smoking cigarettes or pot AROUND children is still a negative factor.
The cops can't arrest you for being a shitty person, only for breaking laws decided by Congress.
Are you from Russia or something?
No they can't, but CPS can remove a child for all kinds of abuse that doesn't rise to the level of illegality, it's like that in every state in the US.
You're good at explaining stuff, and I'd like to understand please. What abuse that "doesn’t rise to the level of illegality" gets kids seized by child protective agencies?
OK think of it like this, CPS' duty is to the child. Their goal is to provide the best environment for the child they can. Absent other factors that will always be with the parents. If they see issues with how the child is being raised or their environment they don't immediately take the child away (depending on the severity, obviously). They will provide the parent with education, supplies, etc to fix the problem and get the child back into a healthy environment.
Things can escalate from there if repeated attempts are not yielding positive results. In this case it said she had previous issues with smoking around her other children. That is unhealthy. I doubt that was the only factor in removing them but it is part of the history, so when they saw she had been smoking while pregnant they removed the child.
I would also like to point out from Googling it sounds like that is the procedure in NY, a child can be removed and then the parent can go to court to ask a judge to have the child returned. That is what happened. Then it sounds like the issue with CPS was them not returning the child in a timely manner and using marijuana use it self as a factor determining a child was in a bad environment. Those are obviously issues, but the initial removal (keep in mind we are both armchair quarterbacking) did not seem like an issue to me, it fit standard practices as I have known them.
I don't know the details and I don't want to judge, but if what op says is correct (the baby had measurable level of thc), the government is not punishing the mum, it is trying to protect the child. Thc while growing has been proven to affect brain development.
If the government is actually able to help... That I don't know. I hope they are funded and competent enough
If the mother has shown before the baby is even born that she is unable to make changes to her lifestyle for the good of the child's health, do you think she is likely to now it's born. There's a very real chance that leaving he child with her will result in a bad out come for it as it grows up.
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They do a workup on every child born in a hospital. That shit is going to come up on a blood test. Please stop defending someone who gave brain damaged to their child.
Those first two sentences make sense.
The recommended maximum amount of alcohol while pregnant isn't zero. 12g a day is what I'm seeing in a quick search. I'm sure Marijuana can be safe for the child below a certain level. This article doesn't state any levels besides above zero, and it also doesn't stare any defects caused by it. It does seem to imply no complications though.
I would love to meet these pregnant women responsibly consuming 12g of alcohol and nothing more. Wouldn't be surprised if it was some dumbass religious "but it's communion so it's ok" bullshit.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2043426/
Keep in mind, 12g of alcohol is not 12g of alcohol containing substance. Somewhere around 120-240g of beer should be perfectly fine, depending on the beer. About 1/4 to 1/2 pints per day. If you make that weekly it's about a pint every other day or so.
The people who work in child protection don't necessarily need to be power hungry in order to be racist. There are tons of people in shit jobs getting shit pay who are as racist as it gets. In fact I would argue that most people who are racist are working shit jobs for shit pay. And just because the person you know in that job position is a good human being doesn't absolve others of being racist pieces of shit who look down on black women and use whatever excuse they can use to take their kids from them.
Oh c'mon. You get what you pay for. So the "shit pay" is 100% correct. But do you the type of individual that "shit pay" normally attracts?
Please cite a single piece of evidence on the negative effects of fetal exposure to THC. Fetal alcohol syndrome is well documented, but I've never heard anything comparable regarding marijuana.