Too Dumb to Parent?

Twenty-four-year-old mom Rachel Pullen gave birth to Baby K at 27 weeks. The premature baby underwent two surgeries and a six-month hospital stay before social workers in England, took Baby K to foster parents, Rachel told the Daily Mail.

Now, Baby K is 3 years old. And a court has ruled against Rachel taking her daughter home, buying social services' argument that Rachel lacks the intelligence needed to parent. Rachel, you see, has an IQ of 71. That classifies Rachel as having a borderline intellectual ability. The average adult IQ score range is 90 to 109.

Because of her lack of official smarts, Rachel has been allowed only to see her daughter once a month. And if the latest court decision holds firm, Baby K will get adopted within three months. At that point Rachel will not be allowed to see her daughter, writes The Telegraph.

"If she's adopted, I've been told I won't be allowed any contact with her, apart from sending her one letter or card a year, and I won't be able to use the word daughter or mother in them, Rachel told The Daily Mail. "So what will I be to her? A pen pal? ... When I walk around Nottingham, I see other mothers who are no better or more clever than me and they still have their children. Why?"

Cases such as Rachel's -- even when they hail from another country -- bring up a question that seems to come up every so often. When should legal authorities intervene on behalf of a child and when should they butt out?

One such case that clearly went the wrong way much closer to home was that of Julianna and Greg Caplan of Washington, D.C. The Caplans were featured in a Marc Fisher column early last year. At the time of the column, they were about six months deep into the trappings of the District's child protective services. It all began when one of their twin girls suffered a fall, leading to retinal hemorrhaging. As a precaution, the couple took the girl to Children's Hospital. Long after five doctors and a judge had determined there was no clear cause of abuse, the couple's names were still on the city's child abuse registry.

Nowadays, the ordeal is far behind the girls. First the good news in their update via Julianna: The girls are healthy, happy, talkative and funny. "Life is good." And in a third trip in front of a judge late last summer, the Caplans were removed from the child abuse registry.

But the battle left its mark. Julianna says that unless a health situation with one of her children was life-threatening, she would never walk into a hospital with them again. Instead, she'd wait out the issue and go to her doctor. "I was a silly, overprotective parent; I just wanted to be sure she was okay," Julianna says. "She bumped her head and threw up. I'll never do it again. Pediatricians would say that it was the wrong advice. But within 36 hours, she was in an exersaucer playing and she was fine. They didn't do anything for her [in the hospital], but we couldn't leave. ... I didn’t know you check your rights at the door when you step into the hospital and your child becomes the property of the government.

"I know protection's in place because children are abused, but protections are not in place for parents who don’t abuse. I understand the arguments, but you can’t imagine the horror of being caught on the flip side to families caught up in this mess."

Do you ever worry that someone would flag your family to Child Protective Services? Have you heard other stories like these?

By Stacey Garfinkle | June 8, 2009; 7:00 AM ET

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