Jodi Ferris never dreamed she’d be forced to sleep in her car in the parking lot of a Pennsylvania hospital just hours after giving birth. Join HSLDA Counsel Darren Jones as he and host Mike Farris examine why social workers took emergency custody of the Ferris’s newborn child on today’s Home School Heartbeat.
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Darren Jones:
When a hospital social worker invokes an emergency custody seizure of a newborn infant, one would assume that parental neglect or possible harm might be imminent, but that was never the case for the Ferris family and their newborn daughter. Jodie Ferris was just asking questions about a medical treatment plan that was confusing to her. Mike, what’s the status of this case?
Mike Farris:
Let me say first of all that Jodie and I are not related; we have similar sounding names but they’re spelled differently. Jodie and her husband were held to be effectively in contempt of the nurse by simply asking a few questions. And arguably, disagreeing with a couple of very very routine things, but there was no issue relative to the safety or the health of the child. When parents aren’t able to be good patients and ask questions for themselves and for their child, there’s something wrong in our system. The social worker shouldn’t come in and seize a child just because the parents have asked a few questions. That’s what happened here; we’re in the early stages of the case, we’re going to go forward, we believe that victory will come; we pray that everyone will join with us to support and encourage the Ferris family through your prayers for parental rights.
Darren:
As homeschooling parents, we know how the loss of parental rights in one area can lead to restrictions across the board. For Home School Heartbeat, I’m Darren Jones.
