On Tuesday afternoon Lou Pelletier’s cell phone rang, it was
his wife’s name on the caller ID, when
he answered the voice he heard was his baby girl, Justina. “Daddy, Daddy, I am coming home.” The 16 month battle between the Pelletier
family and the state of Massachusetts has finally come to an end. On Wednesday, June 18th Justina
was transferred back to her family home in Connecticut and the case between her
and the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (MaDCF) was closed.
On May 30th the Pelletier family and MaDCF filed
motions to have Justina reunited with her family stating that all four
requirements of the reunification plan had been met. Since May 30th the motion has been
on the desk and at the mercy of Judge Johnston.
He approved the plan on June 17th and Linda Pelletier,
Justina’s mother, was able to take her home the next morning.
I believe this is in no small part due to the public outcry,
phone calls to the Massachusetts powers-that-be, and extensive media coverage
of this case. Thank you to all of my
readers who joined the fight for this little girl.
Her journey, in a sense, is just beginning. She is confined to a wheelchair, it is
unclear if she received adequate schooling during her time in the custody of
MaDCF, and her forced separation from family will certainly leave scars. Her family plans to find her appropriate physical
therapy, assess her schooling needs, and start the journey to emotional
healing. They are under no delusion that
their world will return to the normal they used to know, but are determined to
help Justina heal and create a new normal for the family.
Lou Pelletier is overjoyed to have his daughter home and
said his main focus at this time is her health and safety. However, he plans, with the help of Liberty
Counsel, to pursue legal action against MaDCF in the future. His goal is to
ensure this never happens to another family and create a “Justina Law” to
protect the families of children with rare diseases against flagrant charges of
medical child abuse and secure parental rights in medical dispute cases. A noble goal and I wish him well on his
journey.
Thank you again to all of my devoted readers for helping get
the word out about this case and indulging my obsession. For the foreseeable future I think I am done
writing about the Pelletier family. I
will however be watching as Liberty Counsel and Lou Pelletier pursue legal
action against MaDCF. Hopefully the next
time the name Justina Pelletier appears on this blog it will be under the
headline “Justina’s Law Takes Effect.”
