Author: Ophelia Benson

  • Disney animator says it’s so hard to animate women

    Why? “Because they have to go through these range of emotions, but you have to keep them pretty.”

  • Avenues to the Institutions

    It was such a revelation learning about my documented pre-Goldenbridge past and its culmination leading to a custodial sentence in that reprehensible Dickensian institution on the periphery of the heart of Dublin – that indeed, was to become synonymous with generational, systemic, grim brutishness towards defenceless children in Ireland and globally in 1996.

    When I was finally re-united with my mother in Birmingham as an adult, I repeatedly asked her how I came to be in Goldenbridge in the first place. She always became very uncomfortable at me probing her on my past, and nervously shuffled her shoulders and replied that I had been sent there to be educated. Education was a misnomer, especially when the ethos of the Sisters of Mercy was to educate the unfortunate penniless classes. She would then quickly shift the conversation to something else, as it always upset her so much when I asked questions of this delicate nature. Alas, I never knew during her life-time that I’d been given a custodial sentence via the Dublin District Court.

    My mother was such an enigma. There was an awful lot that could have been revealed, but instead went unspoken. I never really knew her in that sense, as I had respected her undemonstrative, timid and silent nature most of the time. Then again, I was such an emotional guileless wreck that she could never confide in me, as I know that oftentimes she implied that she had wanted to open up, but rather knew that she couldn’t go there because of me being so extraordinarily psychologically cluttered up. For example, one day she exclaimed: ‘There is something I would like to tell you, however, I can’t bring myself to do so, for fear of you emotionally erupting like a volcano at Mount Etna.” Talk about subtly shifting the blame? She had a slight propensity for mirroring her own guilt, in my approximation. I was thus bereft of any knowledge of the Goldenbridge incarceration variety and the like. Notwithstanding much more that left the hairs standing in upright position on relatives’ heads. She also never divulged anything to them about her past. We were two of a kind in that sphere. It was such a shame that I was so recklessly giddy and irrational and incapable of dissecting and discerning concerning matters, that could have paved the way for smoothing the knowledge that was to later confound me when I learned about it the hard way upon receipt of records. I dread to think how she would have reacted, were she still alive at the time when the Goldenbridge child institutional abuse debacle came to the fore in 1992. She died in 1990.

    Goldenbridge Industrial ‘School’ first came to prominence when it became a subject matter on television and radio programmes and in the media in the very early nineties. Ex-inmates featured in a number of publications and some were to the forefront in the campaign for redress. The programme, ‘Dear Daughter’ was a dramatised documentary that featured the institution. Goldenbridge was also referred to in the ‘States of Fear.’ television programme. The final series provoked a huge public reaction and was followed by the Taoiseach’s apology. Measures were announced that included the establishment of the commission to inquire into child institutional abuse. In 1997 survivors of Reformatories and Industrial ‘Schools’ were able to access their records. Thus they were able to learn for the very first time about the individual avenue that led to their institutional incarceration.

    The information was obtained from the Department of Education personal records, under The Freedom of Information Act 1997, and the Sisters of Mercy archival office. From these records respectively I learned that I had been committed to Goldenbridge in the mid-fifties via a Committal Order signed by one Justice McCarthy. See: Paddy Doyle’s Order of Detention. I was not yet half a decade old, and I too have one held at a solicitors’ office.

    Many routes

    There were five ways in which a young person could be sent to a certified school by the District Court. 1) ‘Needy or destitute’, this could have also entailed various other sub-categories. 2) Committing a criminal offence. 3) Non-attendance at school. The two other ways were not via the court system, but rather, by way of the local authority; or committal on a voluntary basis.

    Professor David Gwynn Morgan in Section 2 ‘Needy’ children Part I: The Legislative Frame work also says:

    For the entire period under consideration, the governing law was section 58(1) of the Children Act 1908 (as amended by the Children Acts 1929, and 1941), by which a child could be committed to an industrial school if he:

    (a)is found begging or receiving alms…;

    (b)is found not having any home, or visible means of subsistence, or is [found] having no parent or guardian, or a parent or guardian who does not exercise proper guardianship; or

    (c)is found destitute, not being an orphan and having both parents or his surviving parent, or in the case of an illegitimate child, his mother, undergoing penal servitude or imprisonment; or

    (d)is under the care of a parent or guardian who, by reason of reputed criminal or drunken habits, is unfit to have the care of the child; or

    (e)is the daughter…of a father who has been convicted of an offence of [sexually abusing his daughters]; or

    (f)frequents the company of any reputed thief or of any common or reputed prostitute(other than the child’s mother); or

    (g)is lodging or residing in a house used for prostitution…

    By section 58(4) of the 1908 Act:

    Where the parent … of a child proves to a [District Court] that he is unable to control the child, and that he desires the child to be sent to an industrial school … the court, if satisfied on inquiry that it is expedient so to deal with the child, and that the parent understands the results which will follow, may order him to be sent to a certified industrial school.

    There was inevitably a good deal of overlap: poverty begat parental neglect and the reverse inevitable too.

    The people involved in sending children to court were oftentimes untrained, and came from the voluntary sector of society. There was no liaison between all the different sources, and that led to a very chaotic system…for instance., health authorities hardly ever exercised their right of audience before the court. These included: the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (ISPCC), Gardaí, school attendance officers, and also Vincent de Paul Society members, parish priests; or children’s officers from the local health authority, possibly with guidance from Department of Health Inspectors.

    1) ‘Destitution’ or ‘Needy’

    I came under the ‘Destitution’ sub-category and was committed to Goldenbridge until the age of 16.

    It was also very painfully perplexing discovering that my mother had been present at the court hearing, and had given consent to my incarceration. I have indistinct reminiscences of being perched up on the court rails, and of wearing a black and white check plaid coat with matching black velvet collar, sleeves and pockets, that was later perched on high in the coat room, adjacent to the Rec [wreck] hall at Goldenbridge – never to be seen again.

    It must be noted that up to Re Doyle, Large numbers of those committed came under the destitution coupled with parental consent ground. In a Seanad debate the Minister for Education, T. Derrig* made it apparent that he, at any rate, saw this consent requirement as an important point of principle and resisted an opposition amendment, which would have infringed it.

    On behalf of studies on Reformatories and Industrial ‘Schools’ requested by the commission to inquire into child abuse, Professor David Gwynn Morgan in Section 2 ‘Needy’ children. Part I: The Legislative Frame work says:

    Subsequent legislation expanded the 1908 Act in two main respects. First, sub-paragraph (c) (‘is found destitute’) was in fact rather narrow in that it required the child’s parents to be in prison. The Children Act 1929 (later re-enacted in the Children Act 1941, s 10(1)(d)) in effect widened this category by providing that a child could be committed, provided that two further conditions were both satisfied: first the child ‘is found destitute and is not an orphan and his parents are or his surviving parent or, in the case of an illegitimate child, his mother is unable to support him’. And secondly, if ‘both parents consent or the court is satisfied that a parent’s consent may be dispensed with owing to mental incapacity or desertion.

    2) Offenders: Reformatory or Industrial ‘School’?

    Children who had been connected to offences were the second largest category. St Conleth’s Reformatory School in Daingean Co Offaly, St Joseph’s Industrial School, Artane are two perfect examples of a Reformatory and Industrial ‘School’ for boys.

    The three categories below deal with the cases according to age.

     (1) A child under the age of 12 could not be sent to a Reformatory School, only to an Industrial School, and indeed the records show few children below the age of 12 being committed for offences, even to an Industrial School.

    (2) A child of 12 or 13 (or after 1941, 14) could be sent to an Industrial School provided that the child was a first offender, there were ‘special circumstances’ as to why the child should not be sent to a Reformatory, and the child would not ‘exercise an evil influence over the other children’. In fact despite these conditions, children under 15 years were usually sent to Industrial Schools.

    (3) It was not open to the court, under the Act, to send the offender aged (after 1941) 15 or above to an Industrial School. Thus if a custodial sanction were to be selected, for offenders between the age of 15-17, the only option (apart from very serious crimes) was a Reformatory (1908 Act, s 57(1), as amended by 1941 Act).

    Thus the Reformatory School was reserved for the tougher type of boy, who became eligible for committal between the ages of 12 and 17 (or 16, before the Children Act 1941, s 9). After the 1941 Act took effect, the legal period of detention was between two and four years. Before 1941, the equivalent was three to five years. However, the period of actual detention was usually no more than one or two years, provided that the offender’s behaviour and home circumstances were satisfactory. By contrast, children committed to IndustrialSchool were invariably sent until they were 16.

    3) Non-attendance at school

    Kennedy Report para 11.4 sagely observed, ‘Truancy is often the earliest sign of family break-down,’

    A child of a parent who was in a relationship with a man, who was not the father, was hauled off to court by the infamous ‘cruelty man’ (euphemism for (NSPCC). In addition, naturally, the court and the agencies bringing children before it tended to prefer the non-school attendance category to the offences category, in order to avoid stigmatising the child.

    4) Local Authorities

    There were overlaps in these cases. Meaning that children could at first be sent by the local authorities and other sources, and then subsequently, at an older age be given a sentence via the court system until they reached the age of 16.

    Witnesses who gave evidence to the private arm of the commission to inquire into child abuse [CICA] stated that they were admitted both directly from their parents’ home to Reformatory and Industrial ‘Schools’, and also from various other residential settings, including the following:

    ▪    Mother and Baby Homes. These were often either the place of birth or first residence for non-marital children. A number of witnesses reported that they remained in these homes with their mothers, for up to 3 years.

    ▪    County Homes. These were also both places of birth and first residences. Some witnesses reported being with their mothers in county homes until they were up to five years old.

    ▪    Foster Care. Provided for infants and young children in some circumstances prior to placement in an Industrial School. Before 1983 such arrangements were also known as ‘boarding out’ or ‘at nurse’.

    ▪    Children’s Homes. These facilities admitted infants and young children. A number of witnesses reported being placed in Children’s Homes until they were transferred to an Industrial Schools.

    Survivors who were admitted to Industrial ‘Schools’ from the above mother and baby home settings such as the Regina Coeli Hostel and Bessborough House, Co Cork and St. Patrick’s Home, Navan Road – Adoption Rights Alliance were mostly the offspring of unmarried mothers. Christine Buckley and myself were in Regina Coeli mother and baby home, as were countless other children in Goldenbridge. Christine Buckley, was the daughter of a Nigerian medical student and a married Dublin woman. She was abandoned at three weeks old and grew up in Goldenbridge Industrial ‘School’. She too like me would have been classed as an orphan in Goldenbridge. The term ‘orphan’ was used by survivors in relation to their own circumstances and in reference to survivors who had no contact with any family outside the institutions.

    5 ‘Voluntary’ populous

    Children also went into Industrial ‘Schools’ voluntarily because their mothers were temporarily incapacitated by various illnesses, or may have had complicated pregnancies and the like. They already may have had very large families, and husbands may have been left with no other alternative but to go to work to feed their motley crew. For the period 1949-50 to 1968-69, the average ‘voluntary’ population figure was 101, or 2.2 percent, of the entire schools’ population.

    O’Cinneide and Maguire write about this admittedly small group when they did interviews with some of the Sisters into the conditions under which some children were taken into care.

    Many of the Sisters of Mercy recalled parents simply appearing on the school’s doorstep asking that their children be taken in, and in other cases children were simply abandoned on the convent steps. One of the more poignant recollections was that of Sr Anne Tubridy, who worked in the Cappoquin Industrial ‘School’. She recalled one incident in which a father brought his children to the school asked the Sisters to take the children in, which they did. The man then went home and killed his wife and himself. Sr. Goretti, who worked in the Industrial ‘School’ in Newtownforbes, remembered two girls who were brought to the school by their father after their mother died drowned in the bog.

    Paddy Doyle, author of The God-Squad and his sister were sent to Industrial ‘Schools’ after their ‘father’ was found hanging in a barn.

    A child from an unstable home, or an unmarried mother; a child considered unruly, and not receiving adequate supervision at home; or a child, who was considered at risk.

    Non-Payment

    It also turned out that some of the parents whose children were there on a voluntary basis might have reneged on payments. The same occurred with those detained by the courts, who, were under court orders to contribute towards their children’s payment.

    I know this was a big issue in Goldenbridge where some children were denigrated and made to suffer humiliation because of their parents’ inability to pay up. There was one particular family whose mother had died of cancer, and the father had to look after not only the three children in Goldenbridge, but also a few more older boys who would have been detained in Artane. The eldest girl suffered tremendous stress in Goldenbridge, as the father would invariably offload on to her when he came to visit. Sometimes children would be threatened with not seeing their respective parents due to nonpayment.

    However, when the parents defaulted on court-ordered payments, the local authorities had the authority to prosecute them. There is no evidence that religious orders had the same access to court proceedings to force defaulting parents to pay. Their only option, when the parents of voluntarily placed children failed to make scheduled payments, was to take the children to court and have them formally committed to the school. This seems to have been a rarity.

    Another survivor had this to say vis-à-vis non-payment: “I managed to ‘acquire’ the correspondence between the nuns and Gardai in several counties on my father’s parental monies.” He added: “I was eventually ‘licenced out’ to work off his debt (between 1967 up to 1970) Debt was £62 10 shillings and sixpence!”

    Unlike very many survivors with two parents, my mother never had to pay a single penny for my Goldenbridge upkeep, as heretofore she had been a TB patient, and according to my committal form she was in receipt of a disability pension. So obviously she would have been deemed incapable of supporting me at the time, and thereby ineligible for payment. Poverty-stricken parents it appears had a dubious way of getting their offspring into industrial schools with the help of social workers. For example, the child was given a penny outside the court and was then committed for ‘receiving alms’ (under s 58(1)(a) of the Children Act 1908). Thus the 1929 Act theoretically had the effect of removing the stigma that a child, whose only crime was poverty, had to be found guilty of an offence, before he could be sent to a “school”. It did this by allowing the committal of a child for destitution. This provision of the 1929 Act was struck down in 1956, in Re Doyle.

    *In 1946 Gerard Fogarty from Glin Industrial ‘School‘ was flogged naked with a cat o’ nine tails and immersed in salt water for trying to escape to his mother. There was a call for a public inquiry into all Industrial ‘Schools’ However, at the time it was rejected by the Minister of Education, Thomas Derrig, who said: “it would serve no useful purpose”.

    Related:

    ▪    Evelyn Doyle: Evelyn | Marie-Thérèse O’Loughlin 

    ▪    Evelyn – in her own words

    ▪    Do industrial school children have criminal records

    ▪    The God Squad | A History of Neglect

    ▪    Michael R. Molino – Surviving the “House of a Hundred

    Windows Reformatory and industrial schools system report 1970  – The Story

     

     

  • Deeyah on making the documentary “Banaz: a love story”

    This collective sense of honour and shame has for centuries confined our movement and freedom of choice, and restricted our autonomy.

  • How to funny

    Photo: San Francisco Chronicle quotes Courage Campaign’s Chairman Dr. Paul Song in his SLAM of the CA GOP over the OFFENSIVE & SEXIST anti-Hillary Clinton buttons sold at their convention this weekend:</p> <p>"At the [convention], leaders in the GOP spent most of the time wondering why their party is so unpopular with women and people of color, while at the same time relying on the same TIRED, RACIST and SEXIST attacks to energize their base." http://bit.ly/18MODQ9</p> <p>LIKE & SHARE to stand with us and DEMAND that the CA GOP apologize for these DISGUSTING buttons.

    Captions: two buttons: one says

    KFC Hillary special

    2 Fat Thighs

    2 Small Breasts

    …Left Wing

    The other says

    I still hate Commies…

    even after they

    changed their

    name to Liberals

  • Al-Madinah’s our vision

    Al-Medinah school wants (or pretends to want) incompatible things. It says so right on its home page.

    Our vision

    …

    One of Al-Madinah Schools’ strong characters is the schools extended services program in which pupils will learn independence, self-control, social skills and community conscientiousness. These skills are vital if our pupils are to become self-regulating teenagers and adults. [para 3]

    …

    One of Al-Madinah Schools’ distinct features is the offering of an Islamic Studies program, which will include Quran reading with pronunciations (Tajweed), translation of the Quran (Tafseer) and Quran memorisation (Hifz). We will also teach Islamic Jurisprudence (Fiqh), biography (Seerah) of the Prophet Mohammed (SAW), History of Islam, the Oneness of God (Tauheed) and Islamic Beliefs (Aqeedah). [para 5]

    Those two things fight each other. Pupils can’t learn independence and at the same time learn slavish dependence via indoctrination in “Islamic jurisprudence” and the like.

     

  • But what if the teachings are totally against Islam?

    Al-Madinah school in Derby is even worse than everyone thought. The Independent reports:

    A Muslim free school has been warned it faces closure if it does not take action to eradicate practices which discriminate against girls and women within a week.

    The blunt warning was delivered yesterday in a letter from Lord Nash. the Minister with responsibility for free schools and academies in a letter to the chair of its governing body.

    Lord Nash warned the Al-Madinah free school in Derby that the trust running it had “manifestly breached the conditions of its funding agreement by failing to ensure the safety of children at the school: delivering an unacceptably poor standard of education, discriminating in its policies towards female staff and failing to discharge its duties and responsibilities”.

    An unacceptably bad standard of education? Like under the heading of Books and teaching resources for example?

    In each and every department, all efforts will be geared
    towards ensuring the books and resources conform to the
    teachings of Islam.

    Sensitive, inaccurate and potentially blasphemous material
    will be censored or removed completely. If and when
    teachers are required by the curriculum to convey teachings
    that are totally against Islam¹ , the Director of Islamic Studies
    will brief the relevant teachers and advise accordingly.
    With regards to songs and music, we acknowledge that it
    can be an aid for learning, in particular in primary school.
    Under the guidance of the Director, it shall only be used as
    a learning aid, not for entertainment and amusement
    purposes.

    Muslims are encouraged to reflect on Allah’s beauty in his
    creations. The art lessons will be used as a platform to fulfill
    this religious duty. At the same time however, great care will
    be taken to ensure artwork produced or shown in lessons
    conform with the specific teachings of Prophet Muhammad
    (peace be upon him).

    _______________________

    ¹Darwinism, for example

    This is a madrassah trying to pass itself off as a school which can get funding from the government as a state school.

    Ofsted shut the school down over an issue about background checks on staff but allowed it to reopen on Monday after that issue was settled.

    But then there was the issue about girls being made to sit at the back and women teachers being made to wear religious costume regardless of their religion and their preferences.

    In his letter to Shazia Parveen, who chairs the Al-Madinah Education Trust, Lord Nash delivers the sternest warning ever given by a government minister to one of its flagship free schools, saying: “Unless swift action is taken to address these concerns in a comprehensive way I will be compelled to terminate the school’s funding agreement.”

    In particular, he wants the Trust to ensure by next Tuesday, that all Criminal Records Bureau checks on staff have been completed and written references for every employee taken up.

    In addition, he wants written confirmation that any discriminatory practices which have led to women and girls being treated “less favourably than men and boys” have ceased – and that staff have been told they are not required to cover their hair if it is contrary to their religion or beliefs.

    One law for all, in other words.

  • Ally Fogg on Jesus & Mo and LSE

    Jesus and Mo is anti-religious satire at its best, invariably humane, intelligent, and often very funny.

  • AHS statement on LSE incident

    The National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies strongly condemns the actions of the LSESU.

  • The proud tradition of a free press

    The Independent reported on the LSE Student Union’s interference with the LSE Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Student society yesterday, including quoting one of Dawkins’s tweets.

    It included one panel from the toon – an especially daring one.

  • Independent on Jesus&Mo and LSE Student Union

    Includes an example of the cartoon – the one where Jesus says “Hi I’m Jesus.” Daring.

  • How bishops pushed for a shutdown over birth control

    No cardinal was ever made to interrupt his education for an unplanned pregnancy; no bishop ever endured the pain, blood, and terror of a life-threatening labor.

  • Elizabeth Smart on her nine months of hell

    Smart says Mitchell believed that anything in the world was his for the taking, and that he was a man who never cared for anyone even as he ranted about God.

  • We shan’t say unless you force us

    In case we’re not already sufficiently fed up with the Catholic church today, we learn that

    The Catholic Church tried to strike an agreement with New South Wales Police that would have helped shut down investigations into paedophile priests and placed police in breach of the Crimes Act.

    Police records, accessed under freedom of information laws by Greens MP David Shoebridge, show two attempts were made to finalise memorandums of understanding (MOUs) between police and the church over how to deal with complaints of sexual and physical abuse by Catholic Church personnel.

     

     

     

    Disgusting, isn’t it. “Church authorities shall cover up crimes committed by church employees unless prevented by court order.” Because after all it’s just child rape, nothing that matters.

    Barrister Geoffrey Watson SC says the agreement would have placed police in breach of the Crimes Act.

    “If you become aware of a serious criminal offence, you’ve got to tell the police,” he told the ABC’s Lateline program.

    “When I looked at the MOUs they were really in effect trying to get the police to condone the failure to comply with that law, or even perhaps worse, get the police to participate in that.”

    Dear police, can we please break the law? Thank you very much, the Catholic church.

    In June 2003 Michael McDonald from the Catholic Commission for Employment Relations wrote to the Child Protection Squad: “I, therefore, seek your confirmation that the unsigned memorandum of understanding with the police remains in place.”

    The Catholic Church could not tell Lateline why Mr McDonald was writing to the police, but Kim McKay from the Child Protection Squad was unequivocal in her written response to Mr McDonald.

    “Please note that his (sic) draft unsigned MOU has not been approved by the NSW Police Service, and the arrangements proposed by the MOU are not currently in place,” she said.

    “The arrangements proposed by the draft MOU appear to be in direct conflict with the explicit legislative requirement of section 316 of the Crime Act.”

    Before this letter was sent by Superintendent McKay, the church was under the assumption the agreement was in place.

    It’s so unfaaaaaaair.

    After Superintendent McKay had made it clear in her letter that the unsigned agreement would have breached the Crimes Act, the church and police started negotiations to draft another agreement.

    The second draft agreement, dated August 2004, includes a clause that states: “The Catholic Church or (additional party) shall make available the report of an assessment and any other matter relevant to the accused’s account of events only if authorised in writing by the accused or if required to do so by court order.”

    Mr Shoebridge says the second draft agreement goes even further than the first one.

    “The church wanted to effectively give the accused priest a veto power about whether or not to provide crucial information to the police – utterly extraordinary when you think that that’s less than a decade ago.”

    It is, isn’t it. Just jaw-dropping.

    H/t Leonie Hilliard.

     

  • More on forced pregnancy in Nebraska

    Pteryxx collected more material on this and it’s damning, so I’m just going to add it all. Commentary Pteryxx’s.

    The Nebraska Supreme Court refused to hear the girl’s appeal.  Here’s the decision she was appealing.

    After advising the girl that “when you have the abortion, it’s going to kill the child inside you,” lower court judge Peter Bataillon denied her request for a waiver. Bataillon, who according to RH Reality Check, had been an attorney for extremist anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, found that the girl was not mature and informed enough to make the decision to have an abortion. He also found that the girl should have sought consent from her foster parents, even though the girl’s foster parents are not her legal guardian and the state regulations governing the Department of Health and Human Services gives minors in its custody the right to consent to abortion, without seeking permission from the Department.

    From Operation Rescue lawyer to judge… seems fair and impartial.

    More from RHR, both about the case and about Bataillon.

    After holding the minor to the same pleading standards as attorneys, then punishing her for failing to meet them, the justices continued to ignore the law that clearly states minors in state custody have the right to consent to abortion on their own, by stating that because of the 2011 change from parental notification to parental consent those regulations were no longer valid. Since that 2011 change, the department hasn’t issued any new regulations, meaning that the even if those regulations were still valid thanks to this decision they likely aren’t anymore.

    With the issue of whether minors in state custody can consent to their own abortions now upended, that leaves the petitioner in this case, and future wards of the state in similar quandaries, with only the possibility of convincing a judge via a judicial bypass proceeding that she’s sufficiently mature enough to make the decision to terminate a pregnancy on her own. And we know how those decisions turn out for the minors involved.

    […]

    Not surprisingly, the trial court judge has a history of anti-choice sympathies. In 1990, as a private attorney, Bataillon successfully defended 17 Operation Rescue protesters in Omaha against charges of clinic trespassing, by advancing a “necessity defense” and arguing their trespassing was necessary to prevent the “grave evil” of abortion. Scott Roeder tried unsuccessfully to advance a necessity defense during his trial for the murder of Dr. George Tiller. Three years later, Bataillon represented an anti-abortion activist accused of stalking an abortion provider including approaching him at an Omaha airport and telling him, “You deserve to be blown away.”

    Extracts from the court filing and more references to Bataillon’s history here:

    The trial court judge, Peter Bataillon, went against her at every turn, deciding that even though her biological parents had relinquished their parental rights, she still required a foster parent’s consent under the law; that the “victim of abuse” exception to the consent requirement only applied to abuse by one’s current parents, and not to the abuse she had suffered from her biological parents; and that she was insufficiently mature to make this decision without their consent.

    Today’s 5-2 decision affirmed Judge Bataillon’s decisions on the facts and law, with much deference to his evaluation of this young woman’s maturity:

       In evaluating her maturity, a trial court “‘may draw inferences from the minor’s composure, analytic ability, appearance, thoughtfulness, tone of voice, expressions, and her ability to articulate her reasoning and conclusions.’” The latter items are matters that we cannot discern from the cold record before us and are another reason why we elect to give weight to the fact that the trial judge heard and observed petitioner in finding her not to be mature and well informed.

    Below the fold, why Judge Bataillon really can’t be trusted to protect women’s rights to make their own health care decisions. You’ll be appalled.

    The girl’s attorney testified to the court that Bataillon should have been recused, but the SC refused to address that point.

     

  • She’s not in purdah

    Kamila Shamsie talks to Malala for the Guardian.

    Learning from her parents is something Malala knows a great deal about. Her mother was never formally educated and an awareness of the constraints this placed on her life have made her a great supporter of Malala and her father in their campaign against the Taliban’s attempts to stop female education. One of the more moving details in I Am Malala, the memoir Malala has written with the journalist Christina Lamb, is that her mother was due to start learning to read and write on the day Malala was shot – 9 October 2012. When I suggest that Malala’s campaign for female education may have played a role in encouraging her mother, she says: “That might be.” But she is much happier giving credit to her mother’s determined character, and the example provided by her father, Ziauddin, who long ago set up a school where girls could study as well as boys, in a part of the world where the gender gap in education is vast.

    She misses Swat though. Birmingham is not as beautiful as Swat.

    Perhaps meditating on the value of peace and mercy is an entirely sane way of coping with bullets and invective. But, all the same, it must hurt to find yourself reviled – and not only by the Taliban. In her book she writes of how her speech at the UN received plaudits around the world, but in Pakistan people accused her of seeking fame and the luxury of a life abroad. When I ask her about this, it is one of the only times in the conversation that she turns to Urdu to express herself: “Dukh to insaan ko hota hai jab daikhta hai kay uss ka bhai uss kay khilaf hai.” (“Naturally it’s hurtful when you see your brothers turn against you.”) Her voice is pained, but she quickly switches to English and the more philosophical tone emerges again. “Pakistanis can’t trust,” she says. “They’ve seen in history that people, particularly politicians, are corrupt. And they’re misguided by people in the name of Islam. They’re told: ‘Malala is not a Muslim, she’s not in purdah, she’s working for America.’ They say maybe she’s with the CIA or ISI [Pakistan’s intelligence service]. It’s fine; they say it about every politician too, and I want to become a politician.”

    I hope she does become a politician, and survives and prospers.

  • Bishops to babies: drop dead

    Amanda Marcotte reminds us what popes and bishops really care about.

    Remember Pope Francis said some pretty stuff about how Catholic authorities need to be less obsessed with their attempts to control human sexuality and more interested in helping the poor, and how a bunch of liberals who are grading the pope on a massive curve got excited? Remember how meanie atheists said that it doesn’t matter and we can tell you right now that nothing will change?

    It turns out we were wrong?

    No.

    Think Progress reported yesterday that the United Conference of Catholic Bishops sent a letter urging House Republicans to shut down the government rather than let women use their earned insurance benefits to buy contraception without their employers’ permission. So important is it for the Catholic bishops that your employer get veto power over how you spend compensation you paid for with your labor that they are now openly ranking it over….feeding babies.

    That’s because keeping women down is the most important thing.

    The government shutdown means that WIC is going to run out of money to feed infants. (At first, it was assumed they would only have enough to last a day, but they’re funded through the rest of the month, something the bishops could not have known when they sent the letter.) More than half of babies born in the U.S. get some of their nutrition through WIC.

    God will provide. God will feed all those babies, but women getting contraception, that has to be stopped, by bishops.

  • Flars

    Nice.

    Nick Cohen explains,

    Martin Bright and I thought that what with one thing and another we should take some flowers to Ralph Miliband’s grave.

    People on Facebook were very curious about the uncanny anachronistic boy in the background.

    Photo: Martin Bright and I thought that what with one thing and another we should take some flowers to Ralph Miliband's grave

  • Except those that support the infidels

    The Pakistani Taliban hasn’t fallen asleep on the job. It wants everyone to know it still plans to murder Malala Yousafzai.

    Islamabad: The Pakistani Taliban on Monday said it would target 16-year-old rights activist Malala Yousafzai again…

    Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan spokesman Shahidullah Shahid said Malala was targeted because she was used in propaganda against the militants.

    There is no “because” for murder.

    The Taliban would target her again if given the chance, just as it would target anyone who opposes the group, Shahid told a news channel.

    “She accepted that she attacked Islam so we tried to kill her, and if we get another chance we will definitely kill her and that will make us feel proud,” he was quoted as saying by a news channel.

    “Islam prohibits killing women…except those that support the infidels in their war against our religion.”

     

     

  • Nebraska changed its abortion laws two years ago

    The Nebraska Supreme Court has ruled that a 16-year-old foster child may not have an abortion because she’s not mature enough to decide on her own whether or not to have one.

    Well if she’s not mature enough for that how is she mature enough to bear and raise a child? Oh that’s ok, they might say, she’ll just hand her baby over for adoption. How is she mature enough for that? If she’s not mature enough to decide whether or not to have an abortion she’s surely not mature enough to be pregnant at all. Children shouldn’t have babies, even babies they intend to give up for adoption.

    The 5-2 decision denied the unnamed child’s request for an abortion, saying the girl had not shown that “she is sufficiently mature and well informed to decide on her own whether to have an abortion,” according to the ruling.

    That necessarily means they think she is mature enough to decide to remain pregnant. But being pregnant is a momentous decision; surely it takes at least as much maturity and being well informed as does deciding to stop being pregnant.

    The girl is not named in legal records, but is living with foster parents after the state terminated the parental rights of her biological parents after physical abuse and neglect. At the confidential hearing terminating those parental rights, she told the court that she was pregnant, and that she would not be financially capable of supporting a child or being “the right mom that [she] would like to be right now,” according to the court ruling. But she also told the court that she feared losing her placement in foster care if her highly-religious foster parents learned of her pregnancy.

    Well the judges don’t care about that, because they’re mature enough not to need stable foster care. Lucky them.

    The Omaha World-Herald interviewed her attorney, Catherine Mahern, who said “It is not in my client’s best interests to comment,” while noting that her client could go around the restrictions of Nebraska law by going to another state.

    But speaking to the Houston Chronicle, Mahern said the girl didn’t need consent under the regulations of the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, which states that “if a ward decides to have an abortion, the consent of the parent(s) or Department is not required.” Notification of the girl’s foster parents might be required, however.

    Nebraska changed its abortion laws two years ago from requiring that parents of minors be informed to requiring written and notarized parental consent for an abortion. Exceptions may be made in cases of parental abuse, medical emergencies, or cases in which the minor is “sufficiently mature and well-informed” to decide whether to have an abortion.

    The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that the child did not meet that standard in this case.

    Chip chip chip away at abortion rights. Mess up a life here and another life there, to make baby Jesus smile.

  • Nebraska Supreme Court to foster child: no abortion for you

    She’s 16: not old enough, the judges ruled, to decide on her own to have an abortion. Old enough to bear and raise a child though.