Should a child born after a case of abuse in the home be immediately subject to court protections?
The Utah Court of Appeals considered that and other related questions this week when it upheld a 3rd District Juvenile Court decision that removed a newborn from a home where abuse had existed before.A set of 7-month-old twins were taken from their mother's home in 1993 after she pleaded guilty to "hitting and throwing" the children, who were hospitalized with skull fractures and broken bones, according to the appeals court.
When she gave birth to a third child 10 months after her conviction, the Division of Family Services took custody of the child and filed a neglect petition based on, among other things, the woman's prior abuse.
The woman has appealed that action, arguing that her son wasn't even conceived at the time of the original abuse. She also challenged the trial court's criteria for making its decision and the quality of the evidence that resulted in the decision to remove the newborn child from her custody.
The court upheld the juvenile court's action, specifically finding that an "after-born" child is subject to the existing neglected-child guidelines.
"There is no rational distinction for excluding such an after-born child from protection," the court writes. "A distinction excluding after-born children would leave a large group of at-risk children outside the provision's protective reach based only on an arbitrary time limit."
Such a process still allows the parents recourse, according to the court. They can offer evidence to dispute the "neglect" of their child and possibly demonstrate the situation is different, that what was once an abusive situation has changed.