Vermont child welfare agency seeks to dismiss lawsuit alleging it tracked pregnant women

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Vermont’s kid payment bureau has asked a justice to disregard a suit alleging the authorities routinely targets and tracks large women deemed unsuitable for motherhood.

The Department for Children and Families filed the petition Monday, 2 months aft it was sued by a pistillate who claims the authorities secretly investigated her erstwhile she was large and won custody of her girl earlier the babe was born. The lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont and the Pregnancy Justice advocacy group, seeks some an extremity to what it calls an amerciable surveillance programme and unspecified monetary damages for the woman, who is identified lone by her initials, A.V.

According to the complaint, the manager of a stateless structure wherever A.V. concisely stayed successful January 2022 told the kid payment bureau that she appeared to person untreated paranoia, dissociative behaviors and post-traumatic accent disorder. The authorities opened an probe and aboriginal spoke to the woman’s counselor, midwife and infirmary societal worker. The suit alleges the authorities received updates from the infirmary and won impermanent custody of the fetus portion she was successful labour and past instantly took the babe distant erstwhile she was born.

According to the lawsuit, the authorities had nary jurisdiction earlier the babe was born, an statement the authorities rebuts successful its filing.

“DCF is tasked with the hard and delicate task of balancing the request to support children from imaginable maltreatment and neglect against disruptions to families,” wrote Assistant Attorney General David Groff. “Given its mission, DCF has the authorization to analyse imaginable maltreatment to a soon-to-be-born kid earlier the kid is born. DCF request not hold for harm to hap aft birth.”

The authorities argues that its household tribunal strategy has exclusive jurisdiction to determine whether a kid needs attraction oregon supervision, and that the plaintiff can't relitigate custody decisions via a lawsuit. The question neither confirms nor denies the beingness of a “pregnancy calendar” utilized to way women, but says A.V. lacks lasting to situation it due to the fact that she was ne'er portion of specified a calendar and doesn't assertion to person been.

The suit besides names the infirmary wherever the pistillate gave commencement and a counseling halfway wherever she sought attraction arsenic defendants. Lund, the counseling center, has besides filed a question to disregard the case. In its effect to the suit, Copley Hospital said it cooperated with the state's probe arsenic required nether authorities law. The infirmary denied that it illegally disclosed confidential aesculapian accusation astir A.V. oregon that it routinely collects and disseminates delicate accusation astir large patients.