Page:Schenck v. Knight.pdf/15

1022 However, in my conscience, the Child Welfare Department's protestations of benevolence and goodness cause me to wake up at night. I keep thinking to myself that if a thief had secretly taken Donna Marie's baby from the hospital without her knowledge, every lawman, judge and householder in this state would have looked far and wide for Donna Marie's baby, and, when it was found, each and every citizen would have expected and wanted the baby to be returned to Donna Marie. Yet, when the Child Welfare Department, an arm of the State of Arkansas, without notice or due process obtains a spurious probate order and just as silently takes Donna Marie's baby, we as judges, instead of seeing that Donna Marie's baby is returned to her, stop to see if Donna Marie is a fit and proper mother and whether she can properly care for the child. It may be that Donna Marie appears too immature to properly care for her baby, but the record amply illustrates that she has that something which, despite her poverty and immaturity, has pulled together some friends and a capable lawyer to give their time to try to help her get her baby that was silently taken from her by a prestigious agency bespeaking goodness and benevolence. In making this appraisal I hope that I'm not overlooking the practical effects of life for the sympathy that I find in my heart and conscience.

One other reason impels me to register a dissent to the procedures here approved—i.e., there will just as surely be other Donna Maries but now the Child Welfare Department will have one more lever to coerce the next Donna Marie to sign a "consent to adoption." The Department can now authoritatively point to this decision and tell all future Donna Maries that they may as well sign the "consent to adoption" because if they don't, the Department can take the baby anyway.

Perhaps I am too sympathetic toward motherhood, however, as between the mother and one who takes her baby away without her consent and without notice it appears that some law of nature ought to favor the mother and discourage those who unlawfully take a baby whether the latter be a common thief or a prestigious state