“Even after a judge required ACS to reunite Ms. Rivers with her baby, ACS continued to subject Ms. Rivers to needless court proceedings and a litany of conditions that interfered with her parenting of TW for months, while the unlawful removal of her baby was ratified by senior ACS leadership,” the complaint reads. “This was not because ACS was trying to protect TW; this was because Ms. Rivers is Black.”
Guilty as charged. I am ignorant of how CPS works, except that I used to watch Judging Amy. I’m operating solely on instinct here — I don’t trust cops, and this news item has the odor of cops.
That said, most of what you say makes sense, and the concept of mandatory reporters hadn’t popped into my head at all, thanks. Assuming it’s illegal for children to have cannabis in their blood, I can almost see mandatory reporting coming into play.
Except, we’re in New York, where marijuana is legal. Are all hospitals testing all newborns, and seizing them for CPS/APS if they test positive for marijuana? They’d be seizing an awful lot of newborns.
My guess — still utterly uninformed, I’ll admit — is that New York newborns are only tested for marijuana if Mom is black and has pissed off the hospital staff.
The article said a nurse witnessed the mother smoking pot in the hospital room, I would err on the side of assuming that was the reason the baby was tested. The article says there is a history of racism at CPS in NY towards black people which yeah, that’s an issue. But I’m unwilling to assume that about hospital workers given that the inherent basis of medical work is to treat everyone as best you can regardless of personal feelings.
Agreed — I can’t even muster any doubt that that’s why.
Seems a fairly obvious conclusion that she smoked pot in her hospital room, which led someone to order a marijuana test on both mother and child. That test led to the child being taken away.
A quick Googling suggests that the penalty for smoking indoors in New York is a fine of up to $2,000. Seems harsh, but we don’t want people smoking indoors, so levy the fine.
It doesn’t say that the penalty is losing your child.
Yeah but you’re thinking of it as an action being punished. She was not reported to the police for doing something illegal, even though they technically could have. The hospital was not trying to punish her, they were trying to make sure the child was safe. CPS didn’t take the child away because the mother smokes pot (see caveat at the end), they took the child away because the mother smoked while pregnant. Not to punish her, to protect the baby.
Caveat: a major point of the article is that CPS had been continuing to use smoking pot as a factor of determining unsafe conditions, which they should not have been doing once pot was made legal. Just like smoking cigarettes is not illegal and shouldn’t be a factor in and of itself. However, smoking cigarettes or pot AROUND children is still a negative factor.
I don’t see any of what happened happening if she hadn’t smoked marijuana in her hospital room, so I can’t envision how what happened isn’t punishment for that act.
You’re saying they took the child away because the mother smoked while pregnant. I’d like to know how common that is. Are newborns taken away if staff is aware any mother smokes pot while pregnant?
Did health care workers remain mandated to report marijuana use after is became legal?
Obviously there could be mountains of context we don’t have which could push this in either direction. I do know subjecting children to second hand smoke is absolutely a factor which can result in CPS getting involved.
Tovthecbwsr of my knowledge hospital workers have never been mandated to report drug usage to the police, I know for a fact it’s explicitly illegal for medical staff to report drug use to the police, with one major exception: if there is evidence of harm to the user.
As for reporting drug use to CPS: probably depending on the drug. Again, pot use is legal, but if you get high around your children to the point where you are diminished in your ability to care for that child it becomes an issue.
You must be a teacher — you’re good at this. Your third paragraph is an eye-opener, and makes all this make somewhat more sense to me. Someone who’s toking in a hospital bed might be someone who tends to toke to excess.
Even second-hand smoke — my instant response is to say that’s nuts, because I’m old and grew up with kids who must’ve had black lung by junior high school, just from their parents’ second hand smoke. But it’s a different era, and there’s no doubt that it’s harmful to kids.
Heh, not a teacher, I’ve just been in a career for a long time that primarily requires explaining data to people. I spent enough years as a data analyst to know how bad policing in the US is, the numbers are pretty damn clear. It definitely sounds like NY CPS has its issues but I’ve seen a lot of data around what other state CPS organizations do and they get a lot of crap to do an insanely difficult job.