Medicine at gunpoint: Seattle mother arrested for "kidnapping" her own baby to seek alternative treatments
Posted Friday, June 30, 2006 by Mike Adams
Gunpoint medicine is alive and well in Seattle, Washington, where county law enforcement officers, prompted by Child Protective Services (CPS), arrested and jailed 34-year-old Tina Marie Carlsen for her "crime" of rescuing her infant from overzealous hospital staff who demanded they perform kidney surgery on the infant.
Terrorized by the incident, charged with second-degree kidnapping of her own child, and threatened with bail of $500,000, Tina Carlsen was jailed for several days, during which she was unable to provide lifesaving mother's milk to her baby (which is crucial for a child's brain and immune system). She has still not been allowed physical contact with her infant son.
Carlsen's child was taken from her by Child Protective Services after she refused to drug her infant with doctor-prescribed medications in preparation for surgery to implant kidney dialysis devices. She was also reportedly threatened by a nephrologist (a kidney specialist), who, according to relatives, demanded, "You do what I tell you to do, or I will have the police at the door, taking that baby from you."
And that's exactly what happened: The doctor called Child Protective Services, and CPS won a court battle to take custody of the child based entirely on Carlsen's refusal to submit the child to conventional surgery. When Carlsen rescued her own child from the Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center, a statewide Amber Alert was issued, which mobilized law enforcement to arrest the mother. Initially, the alert claimed the child was in "imminent danger," but this was later contradicted by hospital staff members who issued a statement admitting the child was not in imminent danger.
"This mother's rights have been annihilated," said Kelly Meinig, the president of Citizens for Safe Birth, a non-profit consumer health organization. "What's so scary is this could happen to any of us. All this family wanted was the ability to make an informed decision."
Gunpoint medicine
This incident is the latest example of state-sponsored medical terrorism where parents who do not submit to narrowly-defined "treatments" promoted by conventional medicine are branded as criminals, arrested at gunpoint, jailed and forcibly separated from their children by Child Protective Services. A previous case of medical terrorism involved a Texas teenager who was kidnapped by authorities and forced to undergo toxic chemotherapy treatments that her parents desperately insisted on avoiding.
Conventional medicine, characterized by toxic pharmaceuticals, radical surgical procedures, rampant bribery, corruption and relentless disease mongering and "sick care" profiteering, is increasingly being enforced by gunpoint in the United States. Parents who wish to protect their children from the dangers of chemotherapy, surgery or dangerous prescription drugs may find themselves accused of kidnapping their own children simply by rescuing them from the hands of surgeons and oncologists who stand to profit from every procedure performed.
Entire story here:
http://www.newstarget.com/019512.html"Parents may be free to become martyrs themselves. But it does not follow that they are free in identical circumstances to make martyrs of their children," says the prevailing U.S. Supreme Court decision.
It was written in response to religiously based arguments against treatment, but the increasing popularity of alternative therapies may soon force courts to consider new issues in that arena. Last week, an Oregon woman hid her 4-year-old daughter from authorities for several days because the child was ill with pneumonia and her mother did not believe in using Western medicine to treat it. The woman, Jennifer Sullivan, 30, turned herself in to police last Friday.
In Riley's case, a family physician did exactly that, said the child's grandmother, Teena Thill. Twice, a nephrologist asked child-welfare authorities to investigate the family for failure to obey her medical orders, and twice, Thill said, caseworkers saw no reason to take action.
"The second social worker actually gave Tina a high-five and said, 'You're doing a wonderful job with that baby, keep up the good work,' " she said.
Carlsen had been using alternative therapies -- baths, herbs and a low-stress environment -- to heal her son, with some success, Thill added. But disputes over his care had been ongoing, almost from birth. They erupted earlier this month when his physician insisted that the baby begin a course of prescription medication to pave the way for kidney dialysis.
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