(Continued from parts 1, 2 and 3)
While Phoebe was out, I stayed home and made phone calls. I called family members, and a lawyer. And I searched the Web for any information that might help us. I found several sites devoted to horror stories of innocent parents caught up in Kafkaesque travesties. They were coerced, they say, into making untrue confessions, and accepting unneeded treatment, because the state told them that this is how they would get their children back. But their cooperation was itself further evidence of their guilt, so the state stripped them of their parental rights. Once that happens, it’s all over. The children are adopted by a good mommy and daddy, and their bad former parents will never see them again.
Some of these parents ended up in prison, for trying to hide — or even kidnap — their children. Some of them had children again later, only to have them snatched away in the hospital the very day they were born. No parental rights means no parental rights.
