[1]Bridget Bennett from ABC KSFY in Sioux Falls reports on the Medical Kidnap case of South Dakota family. Story here [2].
Health Impact News
Reporter Bridget Bennett and KSFY in Sioux Falls, South Dakota reported on the Medical Kidnap case of Molly and Michael first reported at Health Impact News’ website MedicalKidnap.com [3]. Molly and Michael will be spending Christmas without their three children, simply because they brought their 2-month old son to the emergency room when they discovered an injury to his tongue after picking him up from daycare. The doctor reported them to CPS, and they lost custody of all three of their children, even though there was no evidence of abuse. The police reportedly removed the children from the home without a warrant, allegedly stating that they “didn’t need one.” (Story here [3].)
KSFY showed a copy of a letter the family received from CPS stating that although there was no abuse, there were allegedly signs of “neglect.” KSFY then interviewed Virgena Wieseler, the Director of Child Protection Services who defined “neglect”:
“Neglect can be a number of things, when the parents or caretakers don’t meet the needs of their children. That could be not responding to a health issue, could be failure to thrive.”
This is an apparent open-ended subjective standard that could be potentially used by any “medical professional” to justify taking children away from parents. KSFY then interviewed Avera Emergency Physician Dr. Jared Friedman, who stated similar conditions about how they remove children from parents:
“It may not be full-fledged physical or sexual abuse, just not having the child taken care of, not properly feeding the child, certainly is another reason we will contact child protective services.”
As we have reported numerous times at MedicalKidnap.com, this open-ended subjective standard has been used in many cases to remove children from parents simply for choosing a different medical doctor or procedure for their children, disagreeing with the doctor, or even just mentioning that they want to seek a second opinion.
Watch the entire interview at ksfy.com [2]. Let Bridget Bennett know how much you appreciate KSFY bringing this story to the public: bbennett@ksfy.com.
If you don’t like Virgena Wieseler’s explanation of what constitutes ground for removing children from parents at CPS, she can be reached at:
CPS@state.sd.us – tel: 605-773-3227 (public source [4].)