Chicago, Ill., Oct 5, 2019 / 04:46 pm (CNA).- Concerns over parental rights violations are being raised as a group of families in Chicago files a lawsuit saying their newborns were wrongly taken from them when they declined a voluntary Vitamin K shot.
Among the couples filing the suit are Brian and Angela Bougher. The Boughers’ fifth child, Glori, was born February 2018 at Silver Cross Hospital in New Lenox.
The couple is opposed to the Vitamin K shot routinely given to newborns in the U.S. to prevent rare but serious internal bleeding. They told the Chicago Tribune that “if God created every baby with a certain amount of vitamin K, then that’s what they need at birth.”
Barring any difficulties with delivery, the Boughers did not want their newborn to receive the Vitamin K shot. According to their lawsuit, they checked with several hospital officials before the due date, and were told they could decline the shot and complete a form noting their religious objections to it.
But once the baby was born, Angela says a doctor called her beliefs “stupid” and “wrong” and then removed her newborn baby from her for about 12 hours and called the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) to report parental neglect.
Babies are often born with low Vitamin K levels. Because of this, Vitamin K has been given regularly to newborns in the U.S. since 1960, to prevent Vitamin K deficiency bleeding, a rare but fatal condition which can occur in a baby’s intestines or brain.
In 2015, the Illinois DCFS classified the Vitamin K shot as medically necessary and, refusal was considered an indicator of parental neglect.
But last year, that policy was rescinded, to ensure that the government was not overstepping the boundaries of parental rights. “Making that kind of determination falls outside the confines of our statutory and professional mission and judgment,” acting director Beverly Walker said in a memo at the time.
Angela told the Chicago Tribune that she was shocked and traumatized when her baby was taken away from her.
“I felt a little bit like a prisoner,” she said. “It was like they had condemned me and I had done something wrong and atrocious, but I didn’t know what that was so I couldn’t really fix it, and no one would really talk through the issue.”
The Boughers are among several parents with similar experiences who filed a lawsuit on Sept. 23 against the Department of Children and Family Services, several of the agency’s officials, and a number of local hospitals and doctors.
The families are seeking monetary restitution and punitive damages for their traumatic experiences and hope to prevent other parents from undergoing a similar situation.
Lucia Silecchia, a human rights law professor at The Catholic University of America, told CNA that the parents and their children were robbed of essential bonding moments.
“The parents in this case were deprived of a critically important bonding time with their new infant. Their daughter, likewise, missed out on early hours in the embrace of her parents and with the full nourishment of her mother,” she said.
Silecchia said this case differs from other controversial cases where parents have declined vaccines or chemotherapy, because the threat of harm from declining the shot is very low.
“First, unlike the vaccine cases, this does not involve a threat to public health and welfare such as that which can result from the spread of infectious diseases,” she said. “Second, unlike the cases in which parents decline blood transfusions or chemotherapy for their ill child, this case did not involve a child who was ill in any way.”
“Absent a threat to public health or a specific harm to an ill child, the interest of the state seems to be weaker. Here, the parents faced dramatic consequences for failure to consent to a routine course of treatment that their child may or may not have needed.”
Father Shenan Boquet, president of Human Life International, also voiced concern about the case, saying it “has the gravest consequences for the rights of parents and the autonomy of the family.”
In an Oct. 2 statement, Boquet said hospital officials knew the shot was determined to be medically non-necessary, and that while they may have believed their actions were right, “[t]hey robbed Brian and Angela of their natural rights, and established the state as the final arbiter.”
The priests stressed that parents have a fundamental right to care for their children in the way that they believe is best.
“This is a human rights issue; parents should not be excluded from making critical decisions that impact the health and future of their children,” he said.
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Things like this can make home deliveries with a midwife a more attractive option. At least for some.
I really appreciate that you added “for some.”
My daughter experienced a non-eventful pregnancy and was very healthy, but during the birth, her baby’s heart stopped, necessitating an emergency C-section. The little boy was delivered, the medical professionals got his little heart started, and all worked out well, except that three days later, my daughter developed an infection and spent 10 days in the hospital, six weeks of IV antibiotics at home, and a year later, a C-section (the infection essentially destroyed her uterus).
We are all grateful for the dearest little boy (now 3) ever, and also grateful for the Catholic doctor (an active pro-life advocate and fertility specialist) who attended the birth and also her stay in the hospital.
I fear that if my daughter had been at home with a midwife (even a skilled midwife), the outcome for both mother and son might have been very grim. And the fact that she had no health concerns throughout the pregnancy but still experienced the birth crises should give women pause when it comes to delivering their children.
As a retired medical technologist, I definitely support midwives, but I’m not so sure about home births. We need to think of the baby’s and mother’s health and well-being first.
I think ??the hospital that deprived a mother of her baby because she refused an optional shot will probably end up losing the lawsuit, although I think that medical experts will have to weigh in on the benefits of Vit. K shot in the event of bleeds, and also assess the baby’s risk of a deadly bleed based on family history, etc.
On the other hand, the doctor was definitely in the wrong to call the mother “stupid and wrong”, although I question her statement that “if God created every baby with a certain amount of Vit K, then that’s what they need at birth”–the problem is that babies HAVE bled out because of lack of Vitamin K, so apparently God doesn’t give all babies “what they need.” And it is GOD who gave/gives scientists and doctors the intelligence to figure out the need for Vitamin K in humans, including babies.
The case in question, IMO, is not as clear-cut as it may appear.