Ablechild.org, Parents Group for ADD/ADHD and Ritalin Use

Defeat the Mother's Act by Mother's Day

This letter will go to your representative in Congress to let them know you do not want the Mother's Act to be passed.

February 10, 2010

Subject:

Dear Senator,

The MOTHERS ACT has been reintroduced in the U.S. Senate (S. 324 introduced Jan 26 2009).

This bill quite simply is a feeder line for the psycho-pharmaceutical industry and will result in more mothers and infants being put at risk for being prescribed antidepressant and other dangerous psychiatric drugs.  These drugs are documented by the U.S. FDA to cause birth defects, psychosis, mania, worsening depression, suicidal and homicidal ideation.

The Melanie Blocker Stokes MOTHERS Act is a federal bill named after Melanie Stokes, a woman who suffered emotional difficulties after giving birth and was subsequently prescribed a cocktail of intensely controversial psychiatric drugs including anti-psychotic, anti-anxiety, and anti-depressant drugs before being subjected to electroshock treatment.

Melanie Stokes was in the mental health system, was prescribed drugs, was hospitalized, was subjected to the still barbaric practice of electroshock and only after receiving mental health “treatment” did she commit suicide. That is what the mental health industry did for a new mother named Melanie Stokes. It is incredible that a story such as this does not raise alarm bells within Congress on the negligence of prescribing cocktails of psychiatric drugs to new mothers, drugs documented by the US FDA and international drug regulatory agencies to cause not only a host of documented adverse events for adults, but also for the unborn children of pregnant women who incredibly, are being prescribed these drugs even during pregnancy.

Despite the industry's rhetoric about the need for more mental health treatment of pregnant women and new mothers, the fact remains that the most common treatment for women diagnosed with postpartum depression is drugs. There is absolutely no language in the Mothers Act that will ensure mothers being “screened” for postpartum depression are granted the most fundamental right of “informed consent,” meaning, per the legal definition, they are warned about all the risks of the proposed treatments and all the alternatives. Please stand up for the rights of mothers and don't let this bill pass.

The opposition to the Mothers Act is simple. It puts the government in a position where they can mandate subjective screening and then determine the fate of a mother and her child --all without any evidence based scientific tests.  I urge you to vote NO on this lethal legislation.

Sincerely,

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