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.
[…]
…the judge’s ruling in Chicago appears to be the first of its kind. Firlit and her ex-husband, Matthew Duiven, have been divorced for seven years, according to WFLD. Court documents show they have had shared custody of their 11-year-old son since June 2014.
Neither Firlit nor Duiven immediately responded to The Washington Post’s request for comment late Sunday.
The hearing on Aug. 10 had nothing to do with revising the custody agreement, Firlit’s lawyer said, so no one was expecting the judge to ask the boy’s mother if she was vaccinated. Firlit said she was befuddled by the judge’s question.
“I was confused because it was just supposed to be about expenses and child support,” she told the Sun-Times. “I asked him what it had to do with the hearing, and he said, ‘I am the judge, and I make the decisions for your case.’ ”
The judge then revoked her custody of her son until she was fully inoculated. Firlit did not indicate if she would get vaccinated, but she said she is trying to appeal the decision because she believes the judge overstepped his authority. She added that taking a son away from his mother is “wrong.”
“I think that it’s dividing families,” Firlit told WFLD. “And I think it’s not in my son’s best interest to be away from his mother.”
The judge has since reversed parts of his decision, though it’s unclear if this simply restores visitation rights or allows the child to live with the mother once again.
You know I’m pretty hawkish about getting vaccinated, so I should be all in favor of punishing parents who refuse to do so, right?
Actually, no. …
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