FLDS Woman Gives Birth at Hospital
By Danell Swim
April 30, 2008
The count of FLDS children in Texas custody increased by one Tuesday after a female whose age is in dispute gave birth to a boy at a San Marcos, Texas, hospital.
Pamela Jeffs delivered a healthy boy around noon at Central Texas Medical Center, where she was brought by Texas Rangers and Child Protective Services. Her mother was allowed to attend the birth, said CPS spokesman Patrick Crimmins.
Other children in state custody continued to settle into group and foster homes across Texas and some mothers left the YFZ Ranch in hopes of being able to visit them.
Texas authorities removed the children from the ranch, owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, earlier this month. CPS said the children are at risk of physical, emotional and sexual abuse because the sect promotes underage and polygamous marriages.
Jeffs is one of 26 women CPS says is a minor - although a court document prepared by a state investigator lists her as 18. Attorney Rod Parker, an FLDS spokesman, also said Jeffs is 18.
“Her husband is 22 and they are a monogamous couple,” Parker said, noting the father “is being deprived of the opportunity to spend those first special moments with his son on a basis that makes no common sense. Infant babies are not going to be indoctrinated.”
I’d hate to imagine that poor girl, forced to deliver in a hospital after previously having experienced homebirth. Hopefully the hospital staff was kind to her, and didn’t insist on repeated vaginal exams, fetal monitoring and purple pushing.
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2 Responses to “FLDS Woman Gives Birth at Hospital”
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smells like carl rovian disinformation. Let’s parse the verbiage:
“they’re investigating the possible sexual abuse of some young boys taken from a polygamist sect’s ranch, as well as broken bones among other children.”
Key words: investigating/possible
the are not saying that such things exist, just that they are investigating the possibility.
well hell pardner, i’m investigating the possiblity that the local baptists were having sex orgies over at the first baptist church of el dorado. sounds bad, but it is all b.-.
if there was compelling proof i suspect it would be waived in front of the public to protect the reputation of that fine TEXAS CPS system.
instead we get ambiguity and future plausible deniability.
yup, sounds like rovian dog meat for the dumb masses.
This whole thing is a mess. I’m not really supportive of the FLDS set of beliefs…but if the government can go after them…when will they be able to go after me?
My understanding is that the government now has some documentation to prove some allegations of underage marriage and polygamy. I’m glad they finally do.
But they NEVER should have been able to remove those children based on a “suspicion.” It should have been based on PROOF. For Pete’s sake…when an abuse report was lodged against my parents and it was verified based on brusing, broken glasses, and the confirmation of my sister and myself AND our parents’ acknowledgement of the acts CPS still couldn’t remove my sister and me from the house because “there was not proof that a significant threat of death existed.” Never mind that my step-monster had actually admitted to making a death threat with means, motive and opportunity within the previous 24 hours.
Now those children are scattered everywhere across the state and their parents can not see them and will not be able to regain custody for a year! Yet not all of the parents are guilty of the charges that are leveled! With young children, there is confusion. I read of one 2 year old that they can not account for…and I all can think is that he is probably in some foster home somewhere being called by the wrong name, and he’s too young to be able to tell anyone who he really is.
In the case quoted here though…there is the issue that this woman/child has a 16 month old child. Sad, sad, sad. Do we know that she previously had a homebirth? I don’t know that we do. And if she did…let’s not try to romanticize it…it may very well not have been the informed, supportive, and empowering kind of birth we strive for in the homebirth community.