“Mary Moe,” a mom with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia in Massachusetts, hasn’t had a great past few months. In October, she showed up at a local hospital emergency room and was found to be pregnant. Mary Moe is on medication for her psychiatric concerns. Doctors who examined her in the E.R. concluded that taking her off the medication would be risky for her, given her pregnancy.
But unlike a lot of people with psychiatric disorders, Mary Moe apparently didn’t have the same freedoms you and I take for granted. Such as the freedom to decide what to do with our own bodies.
Or whether to give birth if we’re pregnant.
In Mary Moe’s case, the state Department of Mental Health intervened on behalf of Mary’s parents. They filed a petition to have the woman’s parents named as guardians. Why?
So the parents could give their consent for an abortion.
Then it got even more scarier when the case ended up in a local Massachusetts courtroom and the judge sided with the parents. And went one step further…