Bad Medicine Parents the State and the Charge of “Medical Child Abuse”

234 University of California, Davis [Vol. 50:205
care. The attorney has spoken to six parents who report being told
that if they refused to sign a consent form adopting the hospital’s
treatment plan they would be reported to the Massachusetts
Department of Children and Families for MCA, their parental rights
would be terminated, and that the court-appointed guardian would
consent to the treatment plan anyway. According to the lawyer:
Each family remembered being told in no uncertain terms that
“there is no point in fighting this. We always win.” or some
strikingly similar iteration thereof. In each case, the hospital
was true to its word: when the parents consented, the
hospitals did not report abuse; when consent was withheld,
the hospital’s Child-Protection Team filed a report of
suspected abuse or neglect immediately, the hospital did win
in court, and the guardian did implement the treatment plan
anyway. 125
Advocacy groups for families with rare diseases report a sharp rise of
MCA allegations being brought against parents of sick children during
the last few years, many of whom had suspected or confirmed
diagnoses of these diseases. MitoAction, which serves families with
mitochondrial disease, formed a task force on Medical Child Abuse
after receiving more than 100 reports from parents asserted to have
committed MCA. 126 Advocacy organizations for families of other rare
disorders also report a sharp increase in such allegations — including
eosiniphilic disorders (disorders relating to elevated numbers of
certain white blood cells), 127 Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (a connective
tissue disorder), 128 and dysautonomia (an autonomic nervous system
disorder). 129 These charges are occurring across the country. 130
Once a report of suspected abuse is made, child protection agencies,
because they do not have a doctor on staff, generally turn to the
outside experts they rely on to assess physical child abuse. Very often,
this is the child abuse protection team of the hospital from which the
report was made. 131 In a substantial number of MCA cases, neither the
125 Telephone Interview with John Martin, KJC Law Firm (Wed. Sept. 28, 2016).
126 Email from Christine Cox, Director of Outreach & Advocacy, MitoAction (Feb. 5,
2015, 5:51 EST) (on file with author). This author first became acquainted with the
issue of MCA when she was invited to join this task force. See also Eichner, supra note 1.
127 See Eichner, supra note 1.
128 See id.
129 See id.
130 See id.
131 See, e.g., ROESLER & JENNY, supra note 12, at 131 (noting that Hasbro Children’s