Child taken from womb by social services – Telegraph

From the article:

A pregnant woman has had her baby forcibly removed by caesarean section by social workers.

Essex social services obtained a High Court order against the woman that allowed her to be forcibly sedated and her child to be taken from her womb.

The council said it was acting in the best interests of the woman, an Italian who was in Britain on a work trip, because she had suffered a mental breakdown.

The baby girl, now 15 months old, is still in the care of social services, who are refusing to give her back to the mother, even though she claims to have made a full recovery.

And we thought eugenics were a thing of the past? It hardly ever makes news in Europe but refugee and migrant women are disproportionately affected by similar Social Services involvement regularly. I have spoken with many Women of Color (who will not speak on record for fear of retaliation) who have mentioned similar vigilantism going on in The Netherlands. It usually starts with Dutch neighbors “notifying” Social Services that there is an “unfit” mother (cultural differences can be perceived as signs of “bad motherhood” over here) and it escalates to full blown investigations that go as far as monitoring what children are fed (“ethnic” foods being subjected to special scrutiny under the guise of “nutrition value”). The women I’ve spoken to have mentioned situations like this with family members, friends, acquaintances, etc. It’s one of the reasons communities are kept tight, as usually positive outcomes depend on strong collective reactions to the injustice.

The case involving the Italian woman in the article is extremely unfortunate but I very strongly suspect it’s not as isolated as the news make it appear. The only difference is that when it happens to Women of Color it remains unreported because of victim’s fear and the normalization of violence.