Posted on 09/29/2007 4:23:09 PM PDT by decimon
ROCHESTER, N.Y. - A family court judge overstepped her authority by ordering a drug-addicted homeless couple to have no more children, a state appeals court ruled Friday in overturning the ban.
Judge Marilyn O'Connor banned Stephanie Pendleton and Rodney Evers in 2004 from having more children until they could get back the four children they lost to foster care, three of whom tested positive for cocaine at birth.
Pendleton, now 38, challenged the ruling.
"We conclude that the court had no authority to prohibit (Pendleton) from procreating," a five-judge panel of the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court wrote.
O'Connor had directed Pendleton and Evers to seek family planning services, parenting counseling and treatment for drug addiction.
"All babies deserve more than to be born to parents who have proven they cannot possibly raise or parent a child," O'Connor wrote. "This neglected existence is an immense burden to place on a child and on society."
That ruling drew fierce criticism from civil libertarians, particularly the New York Civil Liberties Union, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the appeal arguing that the ruling effectively required Pendleton to abstain from sex, use birth control or be sterilized.
The appeals judges denied O'Connor's contention that her right to declare a "no pregnancy" order is implied in a section of the law that allows a judge to impose medical treatment.
The appeals decision doesn't affect O'Connor's finding that the children were neglected, nor a ruling that their parents should be stripped of their parental rights. All four of Pendleton's children are in new homes.
In the case of this wonderful couple it should have read, “from breding.”
Put their butts in separate jails, for endangering the lives of their other children. Then they wouldn’t be able to bring any other children into the world.
Who, but an imbicle, could object to Judge O’Connor’s ruling? I these irresponsible morons have a “constitutional right” to procreate, then society has an obligation to render them incapable of exercising that “right”.
Don’t prohibit them.
Simply take their children from them as befits unfit parents and put them up for adoption. Denial of medical care for their absurd lifestyle would crown the affair, but I’d be willing to get a little accomplished at a time...
I don’t know what the legal arguments would be but if the courts can take from them their current children then forbidding further procreation doesn’t seem much a stretch.
This judge is obviously overstepping her bounds in an environment favorable to judges establishing legislation from the bench. While I don’t disagree with her intention she was way over the line of what any judge should be allowed to do.
Judges need to be assigned limitations of their powers and brought into the system the rest of us work under: being fired for incompetence or for making decisions that the legislature or electorate should make.
Do you really want judges simply inventing the law as they think it should be? The Florida Supreme Court tried that in 2000 in an effort to reverse George Bush's victory. The legislature needs to write the laws not some judge.
She just told them that they reached their limit.
Not so different from the repeat DUI offender who is told to attend AA or forfeit their license for good. Yeah, I realize the government doesn't license people to procreate, but when they act as irresponsibly as these two, they should be sterilized. O'Connor's instuction was much less harsh than that.
There are various rights, including the right to life itself, that can be lost due to a person’s actions. How is this any different?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.