Civil Liberties

Brickbat: Stealing Babies

|

An Italian woman, who wasn't named by media, is fighting to keep British social services from placing her baby for adoption. Last summer, the woman, who was then pregnant, came to England for a Ryanair training course. While there, she had a panic attack and called for help. When police arrived, she was on the phone with her mother who told them her daughter was bipolar and hadn't been taking her medicine. Cops took her to a mental hospital where social services had doctors forcibly sedate her and remove her baby by caesarian section. The woman has fought a legal battle since to get her child back, but social services and British courts have refused to turn the child over to her or to its father.