Preview: No vaccine, no child?

A Chicago woman abruptly has custody of her son taken away because she isn't vaccinated.

I’m certainly not the only family lawyer who’s come across some clients who obstinately refuse to get vaccinated against COVID-19, and one Chicago woman lost custody - and even in-person parenting time - with her son as a result:

When Rebecca Firlit joined a virtual court hearing with her ex-husband earlier this month, the Chicago mother expected the proceedings to focus on child support.

But the judge had other plans.

“One of the first things he asked me … was whether or not I was vaccinated,” Firlit, 39, told the Chicago Sun-Times.

She was not, she said, explaining that she has had “adverse reactions to vaccines in the past” and that a doctor advised her against getting inoculated against the coronavirus.

“It poses a risk,” she added.

Cook County Judge James Shapiro then made what the parents’ attorneys called an unprecedented decision: He said the mother could not see her 11-year-old son until she got a coronavirus vaccine.

The child’s father is vaccinated, the Sun-Times reported.

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