She was forcibly sedated and given a caesarean, then social services took her baby and gave it up for adoption …
It sounds like a tragic movie script but it actually happened to a pregnant Italian woman who was visiting Britain on a work trip.
The 35-year-old Italian suffered a bipolar episode at an airport hotel last July and was arrested and sectioned under the Mental Health Act.
On August 23 last year a judge made an order in the Court of Protection “for the birth to be enforced by way of caesarean section”. The following day, the woman’s baby daughter was taken into care by social workers and is now close to being adopted by a British couple.
Horrifyingly, the adoption is proceeding despite the mother pleading with the courts to keep her child and being given a clean bill of health. The judge in the case even said: “She has accommodation, she has a secure job and she does have the support of her family.
“She told me that she felt well and that in a rather perverse and tragically sad way her daughter had saved her. It had finally brought her to the realisation of accepting that she is bipolar.
“She begged the court not to agree to the care and placement orders being made so that she lost her daughter forever. She believed that by committing to take the medication she could return back to Italy with the child, that she should not go into adoption. She said that nobody is perfect, neither she nor any adoptive mother, and that, I am quite sure, is the case.”
The woman’s other children, aged 11 and four, are being brought up by her parents in Italy.
So why is her child being given to another couple?
Social workers told the court that they have concerns about the mother continuing to take her medication because she had lapsed in the past. So the judge ruled that the now 15-month-old should be placed for adoption because of the risk that her mother might suffer a relapse.
Do you think the court ruling is out of line?