In the Justine Pelletier Case, Government Once Again Muzzles the Opposition

I don’t pretend to fully understand the
medical controversy at the core of the dispute over
Justine Pelletier. It troubles me, though, that the state of
Massachusetts decided to resolve a difference of opinion between
physicians at Tufts Medical Center and Boston Children’s Hospital
by taking a teenage girl away from her parents and
treating their adherence to the Tufts diagnosis as child abuse.
Just as troubling, is that the judge in the case slapped a gag
order on the parents in an effort to prevent them from voicing
their displeasure with official conduct. Once again, American
apparatchiks display their discomfort with public criticism and
debate.

We’ve seen this before with gag orders issued to
recipients of national security letters, forbidding them from
publicly challenging or complaining about government snooping. Even
many judges find those gag orders
constitutionally questionable. They’re convenient, though, for
government officials who like to go about controversial business
with a minimum of muss, fuss, and challenge.

As the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Matt Zimmerman
pointed out with regard to gag orders issued in conjunction
with national security letters, “Any statutory structure that
grants the executive branch such power and couples that power with
the ability to hide its behavior from scrutiny is ripe for
abuse.”

Grabbing children from their parents is a draconian act that is
also “ripe for abuse.” It might be done in a punitive, abusive,
mistaken, or arbitrary fashion. It’s certainly open to question and
criticism when it appears to have been done as a matter of picking
sides in a legitimate difference of opinion between reputable
medical experts.

Why shouldn’t parents be as free to challenge the forcible
removal of a child from their care as a company or individual is to
challenge the siphoning of sensitive information by inquisitive
officials?

Yet the Boston Globe
reported yesterday:

One issue before the judge in today’s hearing was whether Lou
Pelletier should be held in contempt of court for violating a gag
order. The teen’s father has recently given media interviews in
which he expressed frustration with the quality of care his
daughter is getting while in DCF custody, care that he has asserted
has been nearly fatal for her.

Held in contempt for publicizing his fears that the state is
killing his kid? How…inconsiderate of the judge’s feelings.

There may be times when a gag order is appropriate, but
the only one coming to mind right now is an order that would
prevent government officials from telling members of the public to
shut up.