Six-week-old Joel Anaya with his mother
Associated Press – October 25, 2007:
A Nebraska couple sued state health officials Thursday, arguing their rights were violated when their newborn baby was seized by sheriff’s deputies so a mandatory blood test could be performed.
Joel Anaya, who was almost 6 weeks old, was kept in foster care for six days until the tests came back negative earlier this month.
It’s the first time in Nebraska a child was taken from parents to draw the drops of blood from the baby’s heel for the screening, said Marla Augustine, spokeswoman for the state Department of Health and Human Services.
Health officials say the newborn screening program is one of the state’s most cost-effective public health programs. The newborn blood test — usually performed within 48 hours of birth — screens for dozens of rare diseases, some of which can cause severe mental retardation or death if left undetected.
Sheriff’s deputies came Oct. 11 to take the child, who remained in foster care until tests came back Oct. 16. During that period, social workers let Mary Anaya nurse her son several times a day.
Wow! Six days in foster care as a newborn… talk about how to fuck a baby right from the get go! Doesn’t the state or the parents have any sense at all?
I’m all for the testing babies… and given that it was Nebraska, I can imagine why there was a “problem” with the parents… but 6 days with Foster Care? That sounds actionable to me.
Send the parents a bill for the foster care!
This ain’t the parents first time at the rodeo…
I wonder what would have happended if the parents were
members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW) religion? I’m not too sure on the JW practice/stance on a baby blood tests, but reading from Wikipedia on JW (below is an expecpt I think is relevant to my question) makes me think it would have been their religious freedom right to say “No”. Personally I think saying NO to the tests is unwise, dangerous, and cruel, unless you have good reason to suspsect the goverent is really using baby blood tests to store a record of our DNA so they can eventually create a race alien-human superbeings (I digress, ha ha…)…
(From Wikipedia on JW): However, it is a personal decision on how their “own blood will be handled in the course of a surgical procedure, medical test, or current therapy.” This is qualified by their understanding that “collecting, storing, and transfusing of blood directly contradicts what is said in Leviticus and Deuteronomy,”
#5 Gordon – I think the wikipedia quote you use refers to the practice of auto-transfusion – catching and re-using blood lost during a procedure, rather than use of blood for testing. As I understand it, it is transfusion of blood that it outlawed and not merely sampling for testing. I am not a theologian.
Alan
I have an odd feeling that there’s probably a large overlap in the groups that think a fetus has rights and the group that think that parents should not be required to take adequate medical care of their babies, especially if their religion forbids it.
Personally, with regard to the Jehovah’s Witness argument above:
A) I think it applies to Christian Scientists as well.
B) I think a baby is a little bit young to be making a religious decision that may affect their life.
C) I think that this case, where it is a routine test is a gray area.
D) I think in cases where there is a definite known life-threatening illness, such as diabetes, the parent’s religion should not take precedence over getting the kid to the stage of life where s/he can make up his/her own mind.
Children are not yet democrats, republicans, liberals, libertarians, communists, fascists, or any other ideology. It takes time to form a realistic and adult position on these things. The same is true of religion.
“the newborn screening program is one of the state’s most cost-effective public health programs.”
Of course! They have to keep a secret dna database of organ “donors” in case a spoiled rich brat or a billionare old farts needs an organ and luckily someone with a matching organ just had an “accident.”
Courts ROUTINELY take kids from religious nutbags and other misfits for required healthcare. Nothing new there and if that is a characteristic of the “Nanny State”, then I’m all for it.
On the other hand, Poor little kiddies going to have to grow up with those nutbags for the next 18 years. Maybe being retarded would be the easier way to go?
And yet people say they want government health care, which will lead to things like this, only worse, and done to older people. John Edwards already said he was for mandatory health examines. You people (lib nut jobs) will scream about phone taps and then sleep while this crap creeps up on us.
#10 – Dustin,
Do you think an infant is capable of making his/her own life and death decisions? Do you think an infant has truly made up his/her mind about religion and the benefits of science based health care versus the efficacy of prayer? Do you think an infant is capable of weighing the importance of life over the supposed afterlife?
The religious wackos among us claim to be pro-life. They claim all life is sacred. They claim we must protect a fetus at the expense of a mother. Then they claim that a newborn baby may be prevented from getting adequate health care because of the beliefs of the parent.
How’d that go again? I must’ve missed something.
I read that in some places, cops are taking blood samples at traffic stops.
#12 – MikeN,
I read that aliens are coming down to earth and eating people’s brains. Mind posting a link when you make statements like that?
#13, Scott,
The aliens started with MikeN.
try googling cops blood samples. I don’t know how true this is, as it sounds like too many lawsuits
#15 – MikeN,
That’s not really how it works. You made the claim. You back it up. Since you’re now saying that you don’t know how true it is, I’m prepared to ignore the post completely.
Hey, go easy on us Nebraskans.
We’re just doing the tests to see if the football team has finally been reincarnated…
” Of course! They have to keep a secret dna database of organ “donors” in case a spoiled rich brat or a billionare old farts needs an organ and luckily someone with a matching organ just had an “accident.” ”
I wouldn’t be surprised if in a few years down the road someone leaks that the state was building a database with the tests. The government could care less about your health or the health of your children.
http://www.usmedicine.com/dailyNews.cfm?dailyID=114
The combined chance of having any of these diseases is 0.16%. Do the math. They are non-contagious and non preventable so it doesn’t effect anyone else. Some doctors actually have said that more damage is done treating children who have false positives. The only benefit of screening is that treatment may be started earlier. That is why 46 states have exemptions. Nebraska state senators have proposed exemption legislation year after year, but is keeps being indefinitely postponed by the health and human services committee.
This is a screening test. Not denying treatment. Do all of you get every screening test known to doctors?
Statistically it is more likely to be seriously injured playing for the Huskers than it is to have one of these diseases. So let’s outlaw football.
Remember our founding fathers valued freedom so much that they sacrificed their lives and fortunes just to have the right to vote on tax increases. Today, you think if the government mails someone a letter saying take your new baby to a laboratory and give us a blood sample we should all just say, “Sure you can take my baby’s blood any time.”
Maybe this issue doesn’t concern you. However, if minority rights aren’t protected now, who will be left to protect you when it is an issue that concerns you? Remember Nazi Germany. Wake up!
For a screening test!?!?!?!?!
They TOOK a child?!?!?!?!?
Is this some Halloween joke?
I thought we had laughed off Orwell’s world.
What about the people (Amish) who primarily deliver their children outside of the mainstream hospitals?
#19 i support your comments way to go
#19 – well said!
These parents weren’t abusing nor neglecting their child. They simply followed a religious belief that added minimal physical risk, but protected their and their baby’s soul. I don’t personally subscribe to this version of Christianity, but I have a healthy respect for those who value their soul and their spiritual life.
Understand that the more freedom you take away, the more you abdicate for yourself. Some lines need to be drawn, but take great care with where you draw them.
The State owns you, your family, your house, your pets. The State owns everything. You live only at the pleasure of the State.
There is no privacy, no individual rights, no nothing. There is only the State who has absolute power over everything. There is only the illusion of freedom.
These people did nothing wrong. They are loving and wonderful people. The state says it’s OK for you to make a decsion to kill your baby before it’s born, but once the cord is cut then the state takes over, and you no longer have the right to make any decisions concerning the health and welfare of the child unless it is what the State wants you to do.
Only in AMERIKA !
Can you spell Elian Gonzales ?
If that cop had KIDNAPPED my baby, I would have put two in the back of his head and gotten rid of him! I am astounded that some Americans have become so complacent that they would allow this gestapo B.S. in their own home! What would those who have given their lives for this country think?! I am am ashamed and appalled!!
This is getting more common than people can imagine. Just try to have a newborn baby and NOT take vaccines. This makes medical staff very mad and then they start pushing and pushing. Why I
ask does a newborn need a hepatitis B shot, which is caught from needle use and sex. When does a newborn do either of these. It should be the choice of the parents to make any and all of these decisions. I don’t believe the Nebraska baby should of be taken from the parents and we need to get some laws to protect us from our own government from taking our children from us. That’s strange the government that is trying to protect us taking our children. HMMM! Sounds like Health and Human services needed some work? God help all of us from the government.