I’ve Moved!
November 20, 2008
So I’m sure that most people have noticed that the site has been offline for a few days. There’s a reason for that, which I will get to shortly. But first, let me just say this:
In fact, I am blogging at a new site I have just finished setting up: kennethhynek.net. A full explanation for the reasons behind the move can be found here
.
That said, this is not the end of Time Immortal. My wife Grace has expressed interest in taking over blogging at this domain, and I am working to make sure that she gets set up here as soon as possible.
Also, my profound apologies for the modification to the site face; the move was not as seamless as I would have hoped, and many of the image files for this theme, and in the gallery, were corrupted during the course of their evacuation from my previous web host’s servers. Until such time as I have repaired them, I’ve put a clean-looking template in place of the previous one.
Update: for the purposes of further traffic shaping, new posts from kennethhynek.net will be excerpted below. Full articles can be read at the new blog.
Yeah, its nice to visit…but you wouldn’t want to bring the kids up there
September 5, 2007
…after all, the English government might want to take them away from you at birth.
A pregnant woman has been told that her baby will be taken from her at birth because she is deemed capable of “emotional abuse”, even though psychiatrists treating her say there is no evidence to suggest that she will harm her child in any way.
Question: doesn’t that mean that every child can be taken away from its parents, since every human being is “capable” of emotional abuse according to normal, accepted definitions of the term “capable”?
Or is that the point?
Social services’ recommendation that the baby should be taken from Fran Lyon, a 22-year-old charity worker who has five A-levels and a degree in neuroscience, was based in part on a letter from a paediatrician she has never met.
Hexham children’s services, part of Northumberland County Council, said the decision had been made because Miss Lyon was likely to suffer from Munchausen’s Syndrome by proxy, a condition unproven by science in which a mother will make up an illness in her child, or harm it, to draw attention to herself.
Under the plan, a doctor will hand the newborn to a social worker, provided there are no medical complications. Social services’ request for an emergency protection order - these are usually granted - will be heard in secret in the family court at Hexham magistrates on the same day.
From then on, anyone discussing the case, including Miss Lyon, will be deemed to be in contempt of the court.
Isn’t that great? It’s contempt of court to protest or, presumably, amass evidence with which to appeal the decision, since (again, by definition) one will usually have to discuss the case prior to appealing the decision.
In other words, it’s game over before the game begins. So in addition to the eerie power that the British government seems to be leveraging here in regard to taking babies away from their parents for apparently arbitrary reasons, it would appear that the British courts are working on ways to avoid ever having to see a decision of theirs be overturned on appeal.
But all that isn’t the most worrisome part of the article:
The case adds to growing concern, highlighted in a series of articles in The Sunday Telegraph, over a huge rise in the number of babies under a year old being taken from parents. The figure was 2,000 last year, three times the number 10 years ago.
Critics say councils are taking more babies from parents to help them meet adoption “targets”.
Words fail.
Look, I’m a huge supporter of adoption…but not at the expense of coercing — either one-on-one or through the courts — mothers into giving up children they’d rather keep. Adoption quotas not being met could be solved in a far easier way than simply forcing mothers who want to keep their children to give them up for adoption. With thousands of babies being aborted each year in Britain, a blanket ban on abortion services would go a long way toward providing a healthy number of infants with which to meet those adoption “targets”.
But no…clearly it’s better to take the babies away from the mothers that want to keep them, right?
Update: Mothers Against Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, also — or, perhaps, better — known as Mothers Against Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy Allegations (M.A.M.A.), is an organization in Britain which apparently exists to attempt to give a voice to those victimized by this growing trend in British natal medicine. Give them a look.
(In Soviet Russia, hat tips you: RelCath)
