Tag: parental rights

Pennsylvania Lawmakers Push To Protect Medical Marijuana Patients In Child Custody Cases After Father Loses Rights Over THC Test

Pennsylvania lawmakers are taking action to clarify that a person’s status as a medical marijuana patient cannot be used against them in parental custody rulings in family court.

While state statue clearly stipulates that lawful use of medical cannabis “shall not by itself be considered by a court in a custody proceeding,” a father’s recent experience losing custody rights after testing positive for THC metabolites has exposed an apparent implementation issue.

After David Levi—a registered medical cannabis patient with severe arthritis—sought financial support from his daughter’s mother in family court, his use of marijuana became a determining factor, contrary to what’s prescribed under state law.

“By the time they were done with me, I became a drug user—not a prescribed user—and that’s my tagline” in the eyes of the court, Levi told Marijuana Moment. “And two days before my father died, I got an email, and it was that the judge had ordered to take away all of my rights as a father.”

“I went from 50-50 custody to not being able to drive my daughter, and I’m only allowed to have overnight visits with her every other week,” he said.

Sen. John Kane (D) learned about his constituent’s story and, last week, circulated a cosponsorship memo to build support for forthcoming legislation to both clarify the existing statute and also make it so a person’s medical cannabis patient status cannot be used to determine child custody or to justify a drug test in a custody case.

“To treat his pain without using addictive opioids, my constituent obtained a medical marijuana card and began using this medication to treat his arthritis,” Kane wrote. “Medical marijuana has allowed him to manage his pain, maintain his work, and remain an attentive father to his three-year-old daughter.”

“Despite following the guidelines set forth by Pennsylvania’s Medical Marijuana Act, the constituent found himself in a custody battle that has threatened his rights as a father and penalized him based on his status as a medical marijuana patient,” he said, adding that current statute “prohibits the lawful use of medical marijuana as a determinant of child custody.”

“However, in my constituent’s case, his use of medical marijuana was used against him to determine child custody,” the senator said. And to address the issue, he will be filing legislation to “amend Title 23 Section 5328 to prohibit the use of medical marijuana from being used to determine child custody or the sole reason to order a drug test in child custody cases.”

The text of the bill hasn’t been filed yet. But on the House side, a Republican lawmaker has since committed  to work on the issue as well, Levi said.

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Massachusetts Couple Accused of ‘Kidnapping’ Their Own Five Children from State Custody

A Massachusetts couple is facing serious charges after allegedly kidnapping their five children, who had been placed in the custody of the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF).

Isael Rivera, 31, and Ruth Encarnacion, 30, were located by Fitchburg Police in early March, after a multi-state manhunt.

The couple is accused of taking the children across state lines in an attempt to evade DCF intervention.

Authorities believe the family fled Massachusetts shortly before the state attempted to enforce child protective measures, according to WCVB 5.
Rivera, the biological father of four of the five children, was arraigned last week in Fitchburg District Court. A not-guilty plea was entered on his behalf, and he is currently being held without bail, WHDH reported.

Encarnacion, the mother of all five children, is scheduled to be arraigned this week and faces five counts of kidnapping a minor by a relative. A not-guilty plea has also been entered on her behalf.

According to law enforcement, the family went missing just as DCF prepared to remove the children from Encarnacion’s care on February 27.

Encarnacion’s sister reported her missing days later on March 3, citing a lack of contact since February 26. DCF officially reported the five children missing on March 5, triggering a state and federal search.

Court documents indicate that DCF had opened a case against the couple in February after a pediatrician flagged signs of neglect involving the youngest child, a 9-month-old.

DCF intervened shortly thereafter, but by then, the family had reportedly left Massachusetts.

According to unconfirmed reports, they told their pediatrician they were skipping vaccines for their baby.

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POLICE STATE: Loudoun County Child Protective Services Took a 1-Month-Old Breastfeeding Baby from Her Mother and Navy Veteran Father at Gunpoint — Without Charges, a Crime, or Due Process

A U.S. Navy veteran and his wife were subjected to the full weight of the government’s iron fist as Child Protective Services—backed by armed deputies—stormed their home and seized their one-month-old, breastfeeding infant.

There was no warrant. No due process. No criminal charge.

This happened not in communist China, nor in North Korea. It happened in suburban Virginia. In America. In 2025.

Farzin Yazdani, a Navy veteran, father, and respected engineer, has become the latest victim of a weaponized family court system—a system increasingly aligned with radical bureaucrats and progressive ideologues who seem hellbent on dismantling the American family under the guise of state welfare.

“I’m begging everybody who’s reading this that there’s a crime in progress currently, Loudoun County Government has abducted and falsely imprisoned a one-month-old breastfeeding baby from its innocent mother. Please spread the story far and wide. Interact with it like it Do whatever the algorithm needs to spread this story for the love of God,” Yazdani wrote on X.

Loudoun County Child Protective Services (CPS), flanked by armed deputies from the sheriff’s department, stormed the Yazdani home in what the father describes as a “coordinated ambush” based on a false affidavit from a bitter ex-wife embroiled in a custody battle.

The infant—completely healthy, cared for, and bonded to her mother—was removed with zero regard for constitutional rights, familial bonds, or even basic human decency.

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Mother Arrested, Held In Police Cell In UK, For Confiscating Her Own Daughters’ iPads

A mother was arrested and jailed for seven hours after she confiscated iPads from her own children because she wanted them to concentrate on their homework.

It’s the latest insane story of police overreach from the backwards UK, where stabbings are just an everyday occurrence and robberies are not even investigated, but people saying mean words about the ‘wrong’ things are thrown in prison.

Now responsible parenting is the target.

The LBC report notes:

History teacher Vanessa Brown, 50, spent seven-and-a-half hours in a custody cell on March 26 this year, following a claim she had stolen two iPads which were traced to her mother’s house in Cobham, Surrey.

Yet it transpired that the two devices belonged to her daughters, and Ms Brown had merely confiscated them to encourage them to focus on their schoolwork, a fact Surrey Police has now acknowledged.

“I find it quite traumatic even talking about this now,” Ms Brown recalled.

“At no point did they [the officers] think to themselves, ‘Oh, this is a little bit of an overreaction for a moment, confiscating temporarily her iPads and popping over to her mum’s to have a coffee’. It was just a complete overreaction.

It isn’t made exactly clear who reported the iPads stolen, but it seems to have been the ex-partner of the woman.

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Colorado Sacrifices Parents And Children To The Trans Lobby

No parent should ever be forced to enable harm to their child. It’s a primal instinct—to shield, to nurture, to guide our kids through life’s storms. Yet, Colorado is charging toward a law that turns this instinct upside down, branding it abusive for parents to question their child’s desire to “change their gender.” This isn’t a minor policy tweak; it’s a full-frontal assault on parental rights, propped up by the flimsy facade of “gender-affirming care”—a practice I see as abuse cloaked in compassion.

The legislation at the heart of this, HB25-1312, cleared the Colorado House in early 2025 and is winding through the Senate as of April. Its supporters pitch it as a shield for transgender individuals, but peel back the rhetoric, and the real target emerges: parents who refuse to bow to an ideology that rushes kids into irreversible choices. The bill’s text is unambiguous—using a child’s birth name or biological pronouns (“deadnaming” or “misgendering”) can now be deemed “coercive control,” a legal synonym for abuse. Refuse to endorse your child’s wish to transition? That stance could tip the scales against you in a custody fight. Stand firm in your beliefs, and you might lose your kid entirely.

The implications are chilling. “Gender-affirming care” sounds warm and fuzzy—until you unpack it. Puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, even surgeries—are dangled before children too young to vote, drive, or fathom the lifelong fallout. Decades of research, including studies showing 80% or more of kids with gender dysphoria reconcile with their biological sex after puberty, suggest caution, not haste. Yet Colorado’s bill brooks no such nuance. It demands affirmation over investigation, punishing parents who opt for patience instead of pills. To me, flooding a child’s body with experimental drugs or carving it up isn’t care—it’s harm, pure and simple.

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‘Not a cult’: Holy war erupts as judge bans mom from taking daughter to Christian church

A mother whose constitutional rights were violated by a Maine judge hearing a custody dispute has taken the fight to the state Supreme Court.

The case involves a radical ruling from Jennifer Nofsinger, a judge who heard a custody case, who ordered that the mother was not allowed to take her 11-year-old daughter to an evangelical Christian church.

That was based on “objections” from the child’s father, who like the mother and daughter was not identified in the report from Liberty Counsel, which is working on the case.

Chairman Mat Staver said, “Calvary Chapel is not a cult. This custody order banning a mother from taking her child to a Christian church because of its biblical teachings regarding marriage and human sexuality violates the First Amendment. The custody order cannot prohibit the mother from taking her daughter to church. The implications of this order pose a serious threat to religious freedom.”

The judge granted the father, who objects to the Christian teachings of the church, “the sole right to govern the girl’s religious activities.”

The high court is being asked to reverse the “unlawful custody order” and to restore the mother’s First Amendment right to pass on her religious beliefs

The judge adopted the ideology of a leftist teacher from California who was hired by the father. That teacher, Janja Lalich, told the judge “that cults usually have a charismatic, authoritarian leader who teach about a ‘transcendent belief system’ that offers answers, and ‘promises some sort of salvation.’ She further testified that she had ‘studied’ Calvary Chapel Church and found that the church’s pastor was a ‘charismatic’ speaker, spoke ‘authoritatively’ in his messages, and that he asserted his messages were objective truth.,” Liberty Counsel reported.

That meant, Lalich claimed, the church was “cultic.”

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Colorado Bill Would Classify ‘Misgendering,’ ‘Deadnaming,’ as Child Abuse, Impact Parental Rights, Custody Cases

Colorado Democrats are proposing a bill that would classify “misgendering” and “deadnaming” as forms of child abuse, or “coercive control,” that would be considered in child custody disputes.

The bill, HB25-1312, was introduced on Friday and is set to go before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. The bill’s sponsors are Democrat Reps. Lorena García, Rebekah Stewart Faith Winter, and Sen. Chris Kolker.

The bill subscribes to the false idea that one can identify as or become a different sex than they were born as, often called “gender identity.” The bill defines “deadname” as “to purposefully, and with the intent to disregard the individual’s gender identity or gender expression, refer to an individual by their birth name rather than their chosen name.” The bill defines “misgender” as “to purposefully, and with the intent to disregard the individual’s gender identity or gender expression, refer to an individual using an honorific or pronoun that conflicts with the individual’s gender identity or gender expression.”

According to the bill’s summary, the legislation would direct courts making child custody decisions and determining the best interests of a child “for purposes of parenting time” to consider “deadnaming,” “misgendering,” or threatening to publish material related to an individual’s sex change services as types of “coercive control.”

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North Carolina family can sue over COVID-19 vaccine administered without consent, court rules

A North Carolina mother and her son can sue a public school system and a doctors’ group for allegedly giving the boy a COVID-19 vaccine without consent, the state Supreme Court ruled.

The ruling handed down Friday reverses a lower-court decision that a federal health emergency law prevented Emily Happel and her son Tanner Smith from filing a lawsuit.

Both a trial judge and the state Court of Appeals had ruled against the two, who sought litigation after Smith received an unwanted vaccine during the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

Smith was vaccinated in August 2021 at age 14 despite his opposition at a testing and vaccination clinic at a Guilford County high school, according to the family’s lawsuit.

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Maine Court Rules Against Family Of Child Vaccinated Without Parents’ Consent At School

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court has upheld a lower court ruling that school medical staff who gave a COVID-19 vaccine to a minor without obtaining parental consent cannot be held liable.

On March 4, the court ruled that school medical staff were protected under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act).

The PREP Act provides a liability shield to “covered persons” — including those who administer COVID-19 or other countermeasures — during a public health emergency. COVID-19 vaccines are covered under the PREP Act because they were rolled out under emergency use authorization (EUA).

In November 2021, J.H., a minor, was given a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at Miller School in Waldoboro, Maine.

In May 2023, J.H.’s parents Siara Harrington and Jeremiah Hogan, who said they did not consent to the vaccination, sued Lincoln Medical Partners, MaineHealth and pediatrician Dr. Andrew Russ.

The lawsuit, originally filed in Lincoln County Superior Court, challenged the PREP Act’s liability shield. The complaint alleged battery, negligence, false imprisonment, infliction of emotional distress and tortious interference with parental rights.

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‘Gender Secrecy Regime’: Parents Battle Trans Brainwashing in Schools

‘Parents are precluded from exercising their religious obligations to raise and care for their child at a time when it may be highly significant.’

A lawsuit over whether parents are allowed to know about what their schools are telling their children is going to continue.

Officials with the Thomas More Society say that U.S.. District Court Judge Roger T. Benitez in California has denied in a court order all Motions to Dismiss in Mirabelli v. Olson.

That lawsuit challenges “Parental Exclusion Policies” adopted by schools that specifically prevent parents form knowing about some of their own children’s activities in school.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta and members of the California Department of Education and the Escondido Union School District had demanded the case be thrown out.

They had claimed that their rules limiting what parents are allowed to know was “just a suggestion” so there was nobody really harmed by their agenda.

However, Benitez found that the parents “enjoy standing and have stated plausible claims upon which relief can be granted.”

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