Did DHS pressure teen to get abortion and take her out of state for a late term abortion

I read this earlier and for some reason did not post....as someone who used to work in child welfare protective services as well as foster care, do I believe it happened??.....sure do. Social workers tend to be very liberal in their thinking to begin with and it is true you become somewhat hardened to the type of work that they do and when a minor in their custody becomes pregnant you now have another case...another placement issue. Sad and sign of the times. There was a poll on this daily PA paper about who you believe and the poll is overwhelming that the readers believe the foster mother over DHS....taking this girl across state lines for a later term abortion...horrible. This is coerced abortion...remember that the state has custody so the wishes of the parent is immaterial here...she lost custody to the state who now is the parent.

 Posted on Mon, May. 3, 2010
 By REGINA MEDINA
Philadelphia Daily News
 medinar@phillynews.com 215-854-5985

 A DEPARTMENT OF Human Services caseworker pressured a pregnant Mayfair teenager to undergo a late-term abortion by threatening to take away either her toddler or her unborn baby if she had the child, according to the teen's foster mother. The alleged strong-arm tactic happened one day after DHS learned of the pregnancy, when the girl was about 22 weeks pregnant,(picture fetus at 22  weeks)  according to her foster mother and the girl's social worker, Marisol Rivera. The foster mother did not want to be identified in order to protect the girl's identity.

The Daily News also learned that:  DHS got a Family Court judge's order allowing it to take the girl for an abortion, after the girl's birth mother refused to approve the procedure. * By the time DHS arranged for the abortion - in March - the girl was 24 weeks pregnant. She had to undergo the procedure in New Jersey because abortions in Pennsylvania are illegal at 24 weeks.

 Although it is DHS policy that a DHS worker accompany any minor who has a court-ordered medical procedure, this did not happen on the girl's first attempt to have the abortion. That attempt failed when the clinic wouldn't accept her Medicaid card and wanted cash, according to the foster mother. A DHS worker did accompany the girl on a later, successful, attempt.

Rivera, the girl's social worker, said that she was fired by Concilio, which subcontracted with DHS to provide care, after she initially refused to accompany the teen for the abortion. "They hired me to work in child protection, not to kill children," Rivera told the Daily News. DHS officials said that they could not discuss the case because of medical-privacy laws. Attempts to talk to the teenager were unsuccessful. But a source familiar with the case insisted that the girl was not coerced and that her foster mother, whose first language is Spanish, did not understand the conversation between the girl and the DHS worker, Cynthia Brown. Brown declined to comment.

Abortions are a little-known aspect of DHS's oversight of children in its custody. Donald F. Schwarz, the city's deputy mayor for Health and Opportunity, who oversees DHS, said that the agency "is supposed to take a neutral position and not supposed to be involved in the decision making" regarding an abortion. Between September 2006 and March 31, Schwarz said, 335 minors under DHS care became pregnant. Of those, 119 resulted in abortions. Of those abortions, 54 were done by judge's order. Eight of the abortions were performed out of state, Schwarz said. Although federal and state law forbid the use of federal or state money for abortions, and DHS is a recipient of state and federal aid, that money is not used to pay for abortions, Schwarz said. He said that money only from the city budget is used to pay for the procedures.