'Child Protection' Abuses Everywhere

'Abuse of Families is Rampant'

By Izzy Lyman
June 2001

A Wisconsin father gave a chilling warning to Massachusetts families last month about the state of the nation's child protection agencies. Alan Scholl revealed that "outright abuse of families is rampant."

"These children's advocates have unbridled power and are creating a police state," said Scholl, a father of seven.

As part of a nationwide speaking tour, Scholl delivered an address titled "Children of the State?" at the Chestnut Hill Community School in Belchertown.

"Parents often have no idea they have lost many of their rights and are being replaced, step by step, by federal, local, and state government," warned Scholl. "There are few things more chilling than hearing a government official tell you they are taking your child away."

Quoting from the writings of Douglas Besharov, a former director of the National Center on Child Abuse, Scholl explained, "There are over 2 million accusations of child abuse and neglect reported each year, and 60% are utterly baseless." Scholl has made it his quest to warn families about the "humanistic" social workers and educational elites who run the well-funded child abuse industry because of his own dramatic collision with the "global village crowd."

In 1979, Scholl's wife took their 18-month-old daughter for a routine well baby check-up at a pediatric care group in Fresno, California. A small, pink mark on the toddler's throat, which was accidentally incurred from a dryer-heated metal snap on a sweater, was the pretext state authorities used to take little Michelle into protective custody.

"Alan, they're taking my baby!" recalls Scholl of the frantic phone call he received at work from his wife, Doreen. After 48-hours, the chil, who had been retained at a hospital, was returned to the parents. The Scholl's lives were changed forever by that shattering experience.

Gregory Hession, president of Family Legal Services, Inc. of Belchertown, invited Scholl to speak in Hampshire County. Attorney Hession noted that in Massachusetts there are 100,000 annual reports of child abuse investigated under Chapter 51a, "but very rarely are any of these genuine abuse."

Andy McClellan, a student at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst who came to hear Scholl's speech, was sobered by what he learned. "It's not big enough to hurt everybody [government intrusion], but it's getting there."