Tea at Trianon: The Pelletier Case

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, April 4, 2014

The Pelletier Case

Let us pray for Justina to be returned to her family soon. To quote:

This is the case where the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families forcibly took custody from her parents over a year ago of a teenager who had been treated for years for mitochondrial disease (a genetic disorder), when they brought her to Boston Children’s Hospital for consultation about a related gastrointestinal problem and resisted a quickly-made diagnosis by a medical resident and a psychologist there that she instead had a mental problem. Justina has been confined to Children’s Hospital for over a year and then DCF assigned her to a group home and then foster care and a juvenile judge awarded the agency custody of her until she turns eighteen. Justina has written that she feels like a prisoner and she has been denied both schooling and the opportunity to attend Mass or receive Holy Communion—all this, while the hospital and DCF claim they’re “helping” her. Her parents’ have engaged in a protracted legal battle with DCF and now their attorneys have filed a habeas corpus action.

This is not a unique or unusual case. There is nothing more than we’re hearing. Rather, it’s par for the course for the child protective system (CPS) in the U.S., even if especially outrageous. As one who has written about the CPS for over a quarter-century, I can affirm that one aspect of the Pelletier case after another echoes typical CPS practice.

The CPS, by the way, was largely fashioned by the 1974 Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (the Mondale Act), another example of the federal government’s efforts to solve a supposed national crisis, the “epidemic” of child abuse. As I’ve written in Child Abuse, Family Rights, and the Child Protective System and elsewhere, however, the epidemic never existed. In fact, even the government’s own evidence shows that there’s actually less true child abuse and neglect than in the past despite an out-of-control system of false reporting and CPS investigations of parents. Recent HHS statistics show that over 80% of reports of abuse or neglect made to the CPS around the country are unsubstantiated.

In the Pelletier case, the resident—who took it upon himself to reverse the long-standing diagnosis of much more experienced physicians connected with Tufts University Medical Center and started the mess—has remained anonymous. Boston Children’s Hospital has refused to publicly discuss the case, citing the federal HIPAA law. Many, if not most, reports to the CPS are made anonymously with the reporters never held accountable. The HIPAA law was supposed to insure patient privacy, just like the legally mandated “veil of secrecy” over CPS investigations was aimed at protecting families. In fact, these confidentiality requirements are being used to shield the hospital and the agency from adverse publicity—just how the CPS routinely uses them. In fact, the state CPS got the judge in the Pelletier case to impose a gag order, which helps minimize public scrutiny. (Read more.)