Mom deemed unfit parent has newborn taken by state before she held her, VT suit says
Immediately after a woman gave birth at a Vermont hospital, her newborn was taken from her by the state, according to a new lawsuit.
She wasn’t allowed to hold, touch or see her baby girl, the lawsuit says.
The new mother soon learned that the Vermont Department for Children and Families had been granted custody of her daughter — before she was born in February 2022, according to a complaint.
“Despite delivering a healthy baby girl, (her) joy was short-lived. At (the Vermont Department for Children and Families’) direction, hospital staff immediately took physical custody of (the baby) as she entered the world,” the complaint says.
The agency then tried to “sever (the woman’s) parental rights” while it had custody of her baby for seven months, before her daughter was returned to her by a state court, the ACLU of Vermont said in a Jan. 16 news release.
The woman, who’s identified in the complaint as “A.V.,” is represented by the organization and Pregnancy Justice.
“This case is so egregious that it should shock the conscience of any Vermonter who cares about personal autonomy or reproductive liberty,” ACLU of Vermont senior staff attorney Harrison Stark told McClatchy News in an emailed statement on Jan. 23.
According to the lawsuit, the case is a part of a larger pattern that involves the state Department for Children and Families, which is named as a defendant, illegally surveilling expectant mothers and keeping a registry about those it considers unfit to parent.
The agency’s commissioner Chris Winter said in an emailed statement to McClatchy News that the department “is reviewing the lawsuit and is not able to comment at this time.”
“We take our mission of protecting children and supporting families seriously and work hard to balance the safety and well-being of children with the rights of parents,” Winter said.
The lawsuit was also filed against Copley Hospital in Morristown, where the woman had her baby, and Lund, a family center where the woman sought counseling services while pregnant.
The hospital and Lund are accused of providing confidential information about pregnant women to the Vermont Department of Children and Families.
“Copley Hospital complies with approved actions served by the Vermont Department of Children and Families,” hospital spokeswoman Barbara Walls told McClatchy News via email on Jan. 24.
In a statement to McClatchy News, Lund’s interim CEO Ken Schatz said, “We learned of these allegations when they appeared in the news last week. We take the privacy of our clients seriously and we are actively working to gather more information to understand the situation fully.”
The state is given custody over the woman’s fetus
After the woman became pregnant when she was 32 in 2021, she needed to temporarily relocate to a homeless shelter in Vermont around the start of her third trimester, according to the lawsuit.
During this trimester, in January 2022, the Vermont Department for Children and Families received “anecdotal and unverified reports that (she) ... was exhibiting symptoms of a mental health disorder,” the complaint says.
Based on these reports, the agency started investigating the mother and conducted an “assessment for lack of parental capacity” without legal authority — and without the woman knowing, according to the complaint.
In Vermont, parents are supposed to voluntarily agree to these assessments in connection with children who were already born, the complaint says.
During an “aggressive” investigation led by a state caseworker, the Department of Children and Families sought sensitive information about the woman from Copley Hospital and Lund, according to the complaint.
When the woman went into labor in February 2022, the hospital notified the agency at its request and gave updates about her condition, according to the complaint.
As she was in labor, the Department for Children and Families “sought an ex parte emergency care order…seeking to transfer temporary custody of her (baby),” the complaint says.
The agency’s motion for custody was misleading because her baby hadn’t been born yet, according to the complaint.
Ultimately, however, the agency was given custody over her fetus, the complaint says.
At that point, the woman “continued to labor through the night and into the next day,” according to the complaint.
Although she wanted to deliver her baby vaginally, the state Department of Children and Families tried to force her to have a cesarean section, the complaint says.
The agency filed another emergency motion to have her undergo this surgery, according to the complaint.
As an emergency hearing on the agency’s motion was underway, the woman ultimately agreed to have a C-section, then gave birth to her daughter, the complaint says.
Denied bonding time with baby
After the woman’s newborn was taken from her by hospital staff, they put her in a room next to the nursery, where she could hear crying infants, according to the complaint, which says she possibly heard her daughter’s cries.
“She was told that she was not allowed to approach the nursery and could not attempt to view her baby under any circumstances,” the complaint says.
While in that room, a police officer delivered her the news that the state had taken custody of her daughter, according to the complaint.
“DCF and Copley Hospital irreparably harmed her ability to bond with her daughter during the critical first moments of her life, a period she will never be able to regain,” the complaint says.
Afterward, for seven months, the woman was “allowed infrequent, monitored visits with her baby — arranged by DCF,” before she was reunited with her daughter, according to the ACLU of Vermont.
The lawsuit seeks a judgment against the state agency, an order that requires the agency to delete the woman’s confidential records and to stop “surveilling pregnant Vermonters.”
It also seeks an unspecified amount in damages.
“We are a state that supposedly prides itself on our commitment to reproductive freedom. …For a state agency like DCF to be intruding on Vermonters’ most fundamental rights like this, particularly on a systemic scale, is not just unconstitutional; it should be antithetical to who we are,” Stark told McClatchy News.
This story was originally published January 23, 2025 at 2:01 PM.
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