These figures should send a chill down the spine of anyone who values basic human dignity: in England in 2013, 2,018 newborn babies were taken from their mothers and put into the care of the state. This represents a huge hike from five years earlier, in 2008, when 802 newborns were taken into care. To put it another way: in 2008, 0.1 percent of newborns were taken into the care system, while in 2013 it was 0.3 percent.
What’s going on? Education secretary Nicky Moran says the figures, released today by researchers at Lancaster University, are ‘worrying’. She means it’s worrying that so many mums are so rubbish at parenting that their kids are being put at risk.
Actually, what’s really worrying about these figures — not just worrying, in fact, but terrifying — is that they speak to a dangerous cult of zealotry in social-worker ranks, to a growing disdain among the agents of the state for the integrity of families and the mother-newborn bond.
There are two ways we can interpret this massive increase in newborns being taken into care.
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