Judge orders couple not to have children

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"Ron" apositivepl...@netscape.net

ROCHESTER, New York (AP) -- A couple has been ordered not to conceive any more children until the ones they already have are no longer in foster care.
A civil liberties advocate said the court ruling unsealed Friday was "blatantly unconstitutional." Monroe County Family Court Judge Marilyn O'Connor ruled March 31 that both parents "should not have yet another child which must be cared for at public expense." "The facts of this case and the reality of parenthood cry out for family planning education," she ruled. "This court believes the constitutional right to have children is overcome when society must bear the financial and everyday burden of care." The judge is not forcing contraception on the couple nor is she requiring the mother to get an abortion should she become pregnant. The couple may choose to be sterilized at no cost to them, O'Connor ruled.
If the couple violates O'Connor's ruling, they could be jailed for contempt of court.
"I don't know of any precedent that would permit a judge to do this," Anna Schissel, staff attorney for the Reproductive Rights Project of the New York Civil Liberties Union, told the Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester. "And even if there were a precedent, it would be blatantly unconstitutional because it violates the United States Constitution and the New York Constitution." Neither parent attended the proceeding or secured legal representation. The mother waived her right to a lawyer, and the father never showed up in court.
The mother was found to have neglected her four children, ages 1, 2, 4 and 5. All three children who were tested for cocaine tested positive, according to court papers. Both parents had a history of drug abuse. It was not immediately clear if the father had other children.
A case worker testified that the parents ignored an order to get mental health treatment and attend parenting cl***es after the 1-year-old was born.
The mother was still in the hospital after giving birth to her fourth child in March 2003 when authorities took the infant, according to court papers.
Investigators said the mother was unprepared to care for the infant.
Attempts to reach the youngest child's guardian were unsuccessful.
Information on the other children's guardians was not immediately available.
Attorney Chris Affronti, who chairs the family law section of the Monroe County Bar ***ociation, said he's not sure how the ruling could be enforced.
"I think what the judge is trying to do is kind of have a wake-up call for society," he said.

fern5 ...@aol.com (Fern5827)

Contraception is an alternative.
Although this was federally litigated, years ago, it would seem prudent to rexamine some of the constitutional issues involved.
This is the USCC ruling I am referring to in ablove.
Perhaps the family should be in substance abuse treatment, inpatient.
Probably cheaper than FC for a year.
*Sterilization* is out.  How about vasectomy--the pill, Depo, IUD's?
Will never happen.

"Ron" apositivepl...@netscape.net

"ROCHESTER, New York (AP) -- A couple has been ordered not to conceive any more children until the ones they already have are no longer in foster care.
A civil liberties advocate said the court ruling unsealed Friday was "blatantly unconstitutional." Monroe County Family Court Judge Marilyn O'Connor ruled March 31 that both parents "should not have yet another child which must be cared for at public expense." "The facts of this case and the reality of parenthood cry out for family planning education," she ruled. "This court believes the constitutional right to have children is overcome when society must bear the financial and everyday burden of care." The judge is not forcing contraception on the couple nor is she requiring the mother to get an abortion should she become pregnant. The couple may choose to be sterilized at no cost to them, O'Connor ruled.
If the couple violates O'Connor's ruling, they could be jailed for contempt of court.
"I don't know of any precedent that would permit a judge to do this," Anna Schissel, staff attorney for the Reproductive Rights Project of the New York Civil Liberties Union, told the Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester. "And even if there were a precedent, it would be blatantly unconstitutional because it violates the United States Constitution and the New York Constitution." Neither parent attended the proceeding or secured legal representation. The mother waived her right to a lawyer, and the father never showed up in court.
The mother was found to have neglected her four children, ages 1, 2, 4 and 5. All three children who were tested for cocaine tested positive, according to court papers. Both parents had a history of drug abuse. It was not immediately clear if the father had other children.
A case worker testified that the parents ignored an order to get mental health treatment and attend parenting cl***es after the 1-year-old was born.
The mother was still in the hospital after giving birth to her fourth child in March 2003 when authorities took the infant, according to court papers.
Investigators said the mother was unprepared to care for the infant.
Attempts to reach the youngest child's guardian were unsuccessful.
Information on the other children's guardians was not immediately available.
Attorney Chris Affronti, who chairs the family law section of the Monroe County Bar ***ociation, said he's not sure how the ruling could be enforced.
"I think what the judge is trying to do is kind of have a wake-up call for society," he said." It'll get overturned on appeal by some liberal judge somewhere, but its what the country needs.  Its common for mothers that have had their children removed by the state to become immediately pregnant again, in order to replace the removed child or children.  Never thinking that the child was removed for a reason such as inability to care for it, or abuse.  I believe that its an emotional or self-esteem issue.  These individuals believe that having a child means that someone, one person, actually loves them unconditionally.  And of course the state knows that they are still unable to properly care for children, and again take it.  That's how these parents get to having 8 children in the system, all taken one at a time.
It took major balls for that judge to issue that order.  With luck he won't be the last.  Maybe there is hope for us after all.
Ron

pohakuyakok ...@subdimension.com (Kane)

...more babbling...
Never underestmate the complete obtuseness of A Tomato.
There's one of Daisy's Doozies in this Post.
Yeah like there will be a monitor dropping by for family fun hour to check.
(No, this isn't the Doozie) (close, but no Cigar) I can't believe how much detail you included. R R R R Last I heard was that that too is unconstitutional to order. And besides, most druggies not only sail through these as social hour, but love getting clean to lower their tolerance to drugs for a better cheaper high.
Not if you count the cost to the children that are there for when dadda or mamma gets hinkey from lack of Binkie.
(Did yah catch it folks..."sterilization" is out but vasectomy is just fine. Do we have a sexist here, or what?..course I've not figure out The Plant's sex yet. Some plants have sexual parts all on the same plant, sometimes in the same flower.) Plantlife....do you know what vasectomy does?
Or would it have to be, to satisfy you, castration with removal of all extrenal genitalia as in the Harems of old?
We once said slavery's end would never happen. And that women would never get the vote, have birth control available, and who would have thought the religious right, with all their loonie toons weirdness would be coming into such power as we see today in this country?
Never say never.....
Kane

"Sherman" Sherm...@adelphia.net

Have you any proof whatsoever that forcing someone into any type of substance abuse "treatment" has been effective?
Nope, thought not.
Sherman.

"Doug" do...@charter.net

Hi, Sherman!
Actually, yes.  Involuntary treatment for chemical dependency is effective in a low percentage of cases.  It is no less effective than forced CPS services to families, and no more effective, but it does work on occ***ion.
If a client of any service does not believe they have a problem, no proffered treatment or service is going to be effective.  This is basic social work.  Clients are capable of jumping through the hoops -- as they do for CPS and chemical dependency residential treatment centers -- but no progress is made to addressing the problem.  CPS makes its money...substance abuse counselors make their money...but the client returns to the probematic behavior immediately after the intervention ends.  What does happen to some clients legally forced into residential treatment for substance abuse is a change of mind toward the end of the stay; every once in a while a client "gets it" and comes to the realization they have a problem.  Only when they want the solution -- for themselves -- can they move ahead and get anything out of the treatment.  That happens with CPS interventions as well.  But such cases in either population are rare.
Most state-funded residential treatment centers serve a clientele made up primarily of people forced into treatment by probation officers, parole boards or the court.  Around 80% of the clients are forced to be there -- or given an undigestable choice like 30 years in prison or 30 days in treatment.  (Some of them give a lot of thought to the options..."let me think about it and get back to you.") <g> Outcome studies are rare in this field (as they are in child protective work).  But some studies put success rates at 30% for those in the entire residential population who successfully complete the treatment AND actively participate in  12-STEP GROUPS as part of their aftercare.  ("Success" is measured as uninterrupted sobriety for one year).  Treatment followed by therapy or counseling alone has exceedingly poor outcomes -- around 2% to 4%.  The causal variable seems to be Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous or similar self-help groups.
Keep in mind that the 30% positive outcome is from the ENTIRE population, 20% of which would be voluntary clients.  So it is possible that the voluntary clients are overrepresented in the group that succeeded.  It is politically incorrect to propose a research design to measure the relative success rates of involuntary clients versus voluntary, so it will be hard to find research that measures mandated clients' success individually.  It is bound, of course, to be lower than the 30%.
Bureaucracies (in this case probation and parole) are invested into forced treatment -- a form of punishment to them -- and frown upon anyone shedding negative light on mandatory treatment.
A good residential treatment center will use the Minnesota Model of treatment, which intertwines 12-step theory and practice with rational-emotive, cognitive-behavioral, reality therapy, or another therapuetic approach.  Counselors will use any one of these clinical approaches (depending on where the client is) while at the same time introduce the client to 12-step groups.  As a general rule, the first three "steps" are worked at the center and many residential treatment centers make a concerted effort to allow clients to attend outside AA or NA meetings to become familiar with the protocol of the meetings and get to know the members.  The idea is to do as much as one can to p*** on the client from residential treatment to 12-step groups.
Recovery from addiction is a lifetime endeavor.  No addict comes out of residential treatment "cured."  The best graduates exit with a few tools and the knowledge of how to apply them to stay sober on the "outside."   If they did not enter the center with the motivation to change their way of life for themselves or gain that motivation while in treatment, they leave with neither the tools or the knowledge of how to apply them.
Residential treatment for substance abuse, like ALL other forms of social intervention, will not be effective unless the client believes they have a problem and directly participates in setting goals in his treatment plans.
This is just as true in family interventions.  The clients must be invested in the need for the services and actively construct along with the clinician or worker the treatment or safety plan that will lead to solving the client's problems.  If the client does not believe he has a problem or has not participated in working on the plan for solving it, the intervention is doomed to failure.
The exceptions residential treatment centers see are those involuntary clients who actually experience a change of mind or attitude during their stay that convinces them they DO have a problem.  Only then does treatment begin.
I hope this was helpful to you, Sherman.
Doug

"Doug" do...@charter.net

Hi, Don!
Really?
In my post to Sherman, who questioned the effectiveness of forced residential drug treatment, I said that 3 out of ten graduates of those programs stay sober for at least a year.  These successes seem to be dependent upon their voluntary participation in self-help groups throughout that year.  I don't know whether that was consistent with what you are saying, but I have never seen anyone flock to sign up for "every kind of personal development or rehabilition" they could find.
With this particular population, such a rabid "Patty Duke" search for rehab would be especially dangerous because it would defocus them from working on their central problem.
Usually, the denial ends when they recognize their own behaviors have smacked them upside the head.  AA calls it "hitting bottom."  The denial does not end when someone else smacks them beside the head.  Alkies and addicts get smacked a lot on the head, but they "keep coming back." Yes, that would be a wake up call.  There are many wake up calls, if not as tragic, in an addicts life.  The point is what they do afterwards.  For many, all they can think about in the morning light is drinking or drugging to deal with the guilt and same.
I was not talking about CPS's referrals to residential treatment.  In my post about residential treatment centers I spoke of involuntary clients being given the choice of treatment or prison by their probation officers.
The wording was not by accident.  For instance, not far from where I live there is a 23-bed residential treatment center.  The center has a catchment area of 8 rural counties, which are served by eight CPS offices.  It is run by a not-for-profit and the state picks up the tab for clients referred to the 30 day program for treatment.  Last year, Seventy-Eight percent of 293 people of both genders were involuntary clients. 224 of the involuntary clients were referred by probation and parole.  2 were court ordered in leiu of jail, in one case, and a mental health facility, in the other.  1 was referred by CPS.
Across the nation, much of the services/sanctions other than substance abuse treatment offered by CPS are involuntary, of course.  My reference in the post was that a lot of their clients jump through those hoops.  The question remains, as Sherman asked about treatment centers, whether the interventions are successfull in causing the behavioral changes they are intended to change.
I will repeat here what I said in the first post.  Interventions of probation and parole in ordering residential treatment for chemical dependency and CPS services are successfull in a small percentage of cases.
Thirty percent tops for chemical dependency, perhaps the same or less for CPS.
Of course not.  I would suggest that children should not be removed from their families simply because CPS workers think their parents have a substance abuse problem.  CPS's job is to determine if children are abused or neglected or are at risk of same.
I don't know much as I would like about anything.  In the field of addictions treatment, there is a great deal of controversy between both lay people and professionals.  Treatment models are debated; residential vs outpatient treatment is debated; the efficacy of treatment itself is questioned.  But the cornerstone to all behavioral change is the client's motivation or readiness to make changes.  An element to that motivation is recognization of the problem.
I made a number of contentions.  Some of them would be supported by the mainstream.  Some, perhaps not.  As I said, it is a matter of debate.
It would be illogical to extend the treatment model to criminals.  Your argument is absurd.
Ironically, however, you touch on one of the central problems with childwelfare practice.  One of the underlying problems in dysfunctional field practice is the errant attempt to apply the medical model to child abuse.  Child abuse is not a disease.  Child abuse is a crime.  If someone punches you in the mouth, they are charged with a crime and, if found guilty, go to jail.  If someone punches a child in the mouth, they get "services" and psychotherapy.
Yes.
http://www.aafp.org/afp/20000415/2401.html Did you surmise from my post that I am somehow against involuntary interventions for chemically dependent people??
Sherman made a comment inferring that forced residential treatment for chemical dependency was ineffective.  I replied with information about how effective it was and what type of client was more likely to make the behavioral changes necessary for long term abstinance.  I also mentioned that some start involuntarily but decide in treatment that they do have a problem.
I was not editorializing on whether interventions could be made or not.
Chemical dependency treatment?  It pays those who work in it.
...is making the same mistakes and expecting different results.
Thanks for the opportunity to discuss this issue.  I appreciate your comments.
Doug