“The hospital staff were texting with [the child welfare agency] about the dilation of her cervix”

One state allegedly maintains a secret docket of pregnant women. For those on it, it is alleged, this state will rely on a “network of informers” to plunder confidential records and spy on any mother they deem “high risk.” The state may even seek custody before the children are born.  You may be surprised at which state it is.

A lawsuit was filed last week that alleges the following: 

● A pregnant woman was reported to a state family police agency despite no allegation of abuse or neglect.

● She became part of a secret docket of pregnant women singled out for intensive government monitoring.

● Her confidential medical records were obtained and read by strangers without her knowledge.

● Every aspect of her delivery, down to the centimeter, was reported to the government, again without her knowledge.

● The government attempted to force her to undergo a medical procedure.

● The government confiscated her child at birth – refusing to allow the mother to touch her newborn, or even see her.

● The government placed the child with strangers two hours away, strictly limited visits and tried to deprive the child of her mother forever.

So here’s the first question of a two-question pop quiz: The next few paragraphs are from a news story about the lawsuit – and if anything illustrates why “family police agency” is a more accurate term than “child welfare” agency, it’s these next few paragraphs.  I’ve removed information that would reveal the state in which this allegedly occurred.  As you read, see if you can guess the state. 

The [child welfare agency] went to extraordinary and illegal lengths to remove a child from its mother’s custody, aided by an internal program that monitors the pregnancies of multiple [residents], a new lawsuit … alleges. 

The 30-page complaint… accuses the department of secretly tracking the pregnancies of multiple [state residents] that it deems “high-risk” with an internal calendar, without their knowledge or consent. 

The … suit focuses on the case of one mother, identified only as A.V., in which the [child welfare agency] — citing concerns about A.V.’s mental health — allegedly used confidential medical information to secure custody of her daughter before she had even given birth. The department also allegedly sought a court order for the hospital to perform a caesarean section while the mother was in labor, all without A.V.’s knowledge. 

[The agency] removed the infant from her mother’s custody immediately after she was born, according to the suit, only to have the child returned by court order months later. 

“No court ever found that A.V. lacked parental capacity,” the suit reads, alleging that [the agency] did not cite any formal mental health evaluation of A.V. to support its actions. 

It’s obvious, right? A state that would develop what the lawsuit calls “a network of informers,” plunder a mother’s confidential medical records, based on no more than a guess that a fetus was in danger? A state that would demand custody of what anti-abortion crusaders would call a “pre-born child”?  Must be Texas, or maybe Mississippi, right? 

If that were the answer there’d be no point in the quiz, of course.  No, this lawsuit was filed in a state so deep blue that the far right likes to call it “the People’s Republic of Vermont.”  The lawsuit was brought by the Vermont ACLU, along with Pregnancy Justice and two private firms, against the Vermont family police agency, a Vermont hospital, Copley, and a Vermont agency, Lund, that provided confidential pre-natal counseling to the mother (well she thought it was confidential).  Those paragraphs above are from an excellent story in VT Digger.  Vermont Public also has done an excellent story about the case. 

The case at the heart of the suit is no aberration in a couple of ways.  

First, as Vermont Public reports, the lawsuit alleges that the state Department for Children and Families maintains a secret 

so-called “high-risk pregnancy calendar” to regularly monitor pregnant Vermonters deemed “unsuitable for parenthood,” using confidential information illegally obtained from medical providers and social service organizations. 

The information comes from what the lawsuit calls 

[A] network of informers, including medical and social work professionals like the staff at Copley Hospital and Lund, [who] unlawfully collect sensitive information about pregnant Vermonters, even where there is no allegation or suspicion of neglect or abuse. DCF then uses the collected information to zealously seek termination of parental rights, often without having substantiated the anecdotes, information, or concerns directly. 

According to the lawsuit, one is blacklisted on this “calendar” – a term that comes from tracking due dates -- not based on conventional medical criteria for high risk, but rather 

“based solely on speculative concerns about future parenting ability, a determination that often relies on outdated, anecdotal, unsubstantiated, subjective, and discriminatory criteria. 

Those criteria include 

prior involvement with DCF as a child; housing status; or an expectant mother’s preference for “natural” over medically assisted birth. 

As the lawsuit notes: 

Vermont has long represented itself as a haven for bodily autonomy, and the General Assembly legislates against a backdrop of protection for reproductive rights, not conceptions of fetal personhood. Yet despite its limited statutory mandate to protect existing, born children, DCF regularly seeks out information about pregnant Vermonters who have never previously interacted with the agency. DCF amasses pre-birth evidence to support its subjective belief that these women will later make poor parents. Upon, or shortly after birth, DCF then intervenes to seize their infants.

Indeed, in 2022, Vermont voters added a e “reproductive liberty amendment” to the State Constitution. 

Yet Vermont allegedly is implementing upon pregnant woman a Project 2025-style surveillance scheme strikingly similar to one proposed by self-proclaimed liberal Elizabeth Bartholet.

Vermont’s long, ugly history

But that’s not the only way this case is not unusual.  As noted previously on this Blog, for decades, liberal Vermont has torn apart families at one of the highest rates in the nation, more than quadruple the national average.  (But don’t get too smug, conservatives – West Virginia is even worse, and four other deep red states are right behind Vermont.) 

It's all horrifyingly clear in the case of A.V., the mother at the center of the lawsuit. 

The case began when she could not stay in her apartment and had to move to a homeless shelter.  (You don’t think DCF would do this to a rich person, do you?)  The shelter’s director decided that A.V. seemed to have mental health issues.  We don’t know how she reached this decision – except that it was not the result of any evaluation by a mental health professional. But, according to the lawsuit, the shelter director didn’t think A.V. was aware that she was pregnant. This is a bit odd since A.V. had already gone to Lund for prenatal counseling.  (By the way, Lund advertises “nonjudgmental counseling”). 

But there was something else: DCF knew that A.V. had herself allegedly been abused as a child – so she was on the agency’s radar as a victim.  And yes, being a victim of child abuse, or having been in foster care, does indeed make you more likely to face the trauma of investigation and the loss of your own child at the hands of the family police. 

So, as Vermont Public explains: 

The shelter’s report prompted DCF to open “an assessment for lack of parental capacity” and assign a caseworker. The caseworker then reached out to Lund, where A.V. had sought a confidential counseling session, and Copley, where A.V. planned to give birth. She also reached out to A.V.’s mother, according to the ACLU, who said that A.V. had no mental health diagnoses and had made preparations for the baby’s arrival. 

In violation of DCF’s own policies, the caseworker did not even notify A.V. that this assessment was taking place, according to the ACLU. Both Lund and Copley provided to DCF the information the caseworker sought — without A.V.’s knowledge or consent. 

A.V. … went into labor on Feb. 11, 2022. Unbeknownst to A.V., workers at Copley notified DCF, and offered highly granular — and confidential — updates to the state about A.V.’s delivery. 

“The hospital staff were texting with DCF about the dilation of her cervix,” senior ACLU staff attorney Harrison Stark said in an interview.

While A.V. was still in labor, DCF and Deputy State’s Attorney Aliena Gerhard went to court, seeking to transfer temporary custody of A.V.'s as-yet-unborn child to DCF. 

Among other things, DCF wrongly told the court that A.V. already had given birth. The lawsuit alleges DCF knew that wasn’t true.  With A.V. unaware this was happening, let alone being able to defend herself, the judge, who, remember, had been told the child already had been born, approved the request.

But DCF and the hospital weren’t done with A.V.  Her labor continued into the next day, so the hospital allegedly went from agency to agency to agency looking for someone who would go to court to ask a judge to force A.V. to have a Cesarian section. Commendably, the state mental health agency refused. Naturally, DCF obliged.  But while the court process was underway, A.V. agreed to the C-section. 

An infant confiscated at birth 

DCF confiscated the child, known in court papers as S.V., at birth.  As the lawsuit states “A.V. was not allowed to hold - or even touch – the baby.” (Or, to put it another way, the baby was not allowed to hold – or even touch – her mother.)  

Then it got worse.  Again, from the lawsuit Complaint: 

Staff placed A.V. in a room adjacent to the hospital’s nursery. … Although A.V. could hear infants, including presumably S.V., cry in the next room, she was told that she was not allowed to approach the nursery and could not attempt to view her baby under any circumstances. 

The child was placed with foster parents two hours away, visits, including one at a police station, were strictly limited and highly supervised. 

We don’t know why, but we do know that this was a great way for DCF to ensure that the infant would view her own mother as a stranger.  That’s a great way to play the “bonding card” as a means to cut off the child from her mother forever.  As the lawsuit notes: 

A.V. feared her discomfort and S.V.’s unfamiliarity with her would be used as grounds to delay reunification or sever her custody rights. For example, DCF frequently reported that S.V. cried inconsolably during visits with her mother, and it attempted to use these reports as evidence of A.V.’s purported parental unsuitability. …  A.V. was led to believe that if S.V. cried during a visit, then she would be blamed and would not be allowed to see or hold her baby in the future, let alone regain custody. 

Fortunately, the court didn’t fall for it.  Seven months after DCF confiscated the child, A.V. got her back.  It should have been sooner, but DCF repeatedly stalled the process by filing so-called “emergency motions.”  By then actual mental health professionals had conducted an actual evaluation. According to the lawsuit, they “concluded that A.V. suffered none of the mental health conditions alleged by DCF.” 

This time, according to the lawsuit, A.V. gave consent to DCF to actually read the record – and DCF refused! 

One of those alleged mental health conditions, one that is cited repeatedly, is particularly interesting. 

To see why, let’s review again what allegedly happened here: 

● A pregnant woman was reported to a state family police agency despite no allegation of abuse or neglect.

● She became part of a secret docket of pregnant women singled out for intensive government monitoring.

● Her confidential medical records were obtained and read by strangers without her knowledge.

● Every aspect of her delivery, down to the centimeter, was reported to the government, again without her knowledge.

● The government attempted to force her to undergo a medical procedure.

● The government confiscated her child at birth – refusing to allow the mother to touch her newborn, or even see her.

● The government placed the child with strangers two hours away, strictly limited visits and tried to deprive the child of her mother forever. 

So here’s the second question of the quiz: What mental health condition kept coming up as something from which the mother allegedly suffered?

Paranoia.

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