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The Daily Mail today has a story about a woman who will have her baby taken by the government. The reason? Several years ago, after being brutally raped by a serial rapist, she spent some time in a mental hospital. Despite being cleared by a psychiatrist and having a second one write a letter of recommendation on her behalf, local authorities in the U.K. are trying to seize the baby at birth and turn her over to foster parents and eventually for adoption. Despite never having a history of harming another individual, and despite having no psychiatrist or physician say that she's likely to harm her child after examining her, the social services in Northumberland assume she's going to suffer from Munchhausen's Syndrome by Proxy, wherein a caregiver intentionally induces illness or the appearance of illness in a child or disabled or elderly person in their care.

I don't think I can say anything that isn't already there. It's a pretty disturbing, frightening look at the nanny-state run unbelieveably amuck.

My baby will be taken from me the moment it's born
The Daily Mail

The daughter of teachers and with a glimmering academic future, Fran was delighted when she became pregnant. But social services discovered the illness she thought she'd put behind her - and will confiscate her daughter when she is born...

Fran Lyon is due to give birth to her first child - a daughter she has already named Molly - on January 3. But the prospects, far from being one of joyous anticipation, fills her with a dread that keeps her awake at night.

It's not because Fran doesn't want the child. She does. Desperately. And not because she is frightened of the pain of labour. She is prepared for that.

It is what happens afterwards that fuels Fran's anxiety. And there can be no preparation for that pain.

For within 30 minutes of birth, barring any medical complications, Molly will be handed by doctors to social workers. They have instructions to take away Fran's newborn baby and place her in foster care.