Also, why does the child have to be deprived of experiences that she can’t provide? Isn’t the father going to be involved? (Either through visitation or joint custody?) Seems to me there are more ways to go than taking the child away from her.

If you can, please keep us informed about this case.

I was reading, reading, reading along thinking “Oh, this is going too far. some disabled people really can’t take care of their kids,” and then I got to your point about how this is actually about telling women that they can’t depend on help, that they have to do it all themselves, and I was like Oh right, EXACTLY. We all depend on our societies for different things, and we need to navigate that individually, personally.

My following comments do not refer to this particular case.

A knock-on effect of this attitude to custody is that parents with disabilities have yet another disincentive to leave an abusive relationship. Already people are more likely to abuse people with disabilities, physically, sexually, and financially. There are substantial hurdles that people with disabilities face when leaving a relationship, above and beyond the usual hurdles: they are still at risk from their abusive partners when leaving, but they also may have physical difficulty actually leaving; may not be able to manage without their usual care, however bad/abusive; may not be able to access shelters and advice and counselling services; and so on and so on.

Now, to add to that, there is the fear that they will be excluded from custody purely on the basis of their disability.