(NaturalNews) Parents all across the country are quickly learning that they have far fewer rights than previously believed, especially when it comes to making decisions about medical treatment for their children. A growing trend is for hospitals and doctors to falsely accuse parents of "medical child abuse" when they question a diagnosis or ask for a second opinion, in some cases using this accusation as an excuse to steal children away from their families and place them into state custody.

One prominent case of this that we've reported on here at Natural News involves Justina Pelletier, a teenager from Connecticut who has been in the custody of the state of Massachusetts for more than a year. Justina's parents were told by medical experts at Tufts University that their daughter had mitochondrial disease, a diagnosis that Boston Children's Hospital disagreed with and later used as "evidence" to kidnap Justina from her parents.

The saga has been ongoing for months, and the Pelletiers have been actively seeking to regain custody of their daughter. As it currently stands, Justina is being held at a residential treatment facility in Thompson, Connecticut. According to The Boston Globe, Justina is barely allowed to see her parents, except for limited, one-hour, supervised sessions at the hospital's discretion -- in other words, she is a medical prisoner being held captive by the state.

Recently, Justina was allowed to spend the day with her father for Father's Day without state supervision, which some say could be indicative of her soon release back into her parent's custody.

The interesting thing about this particular case is that Justina's parents did not resist the diagnosis of Boston Children's Hospital, which erroneously ruled Justina to have a psychosomatic condition rather than a physical one, based on their own bias. They were merely affirming the expert diagnosis of physicians from Tufts who, last time we checked, are far from idiots.

Even if the Pelletiers had asked for a second opinion on their own accord, it would not have justified their daughter being forcibly taken from them through legal sleight-of-hand. But the fact that she was taken, even after experts from a well-respected university verified her condition, shows how serious this issue is, and how it could happen to anyone who subjects their child to the mainstream medical system.

State of California abducts baby boy after parents question ineptitude of hospital staff

A similar case occurred in California last year when a Sacramento couple questioned the diagnosis given them by Sutter Memorial Hospital for their five-month-old baby boy. Anna Nikolayev and her husband Alex attempted to seek a second opinion from Kaiser Permanente for their son's flu-like symptoms, only to have their precious son stolen from them by the state.

"Anna and Alex were concerned about the quality of care baby Sammy was receiving at Sutter where he was admitted," explains The Healthy Home Economist about the case. "At one point, Anna questioned the antibiotics Sammy was being given and was alarmed that the nurse administering the treatment didn't know why the child was receiving them. Anna claims that a doctor later said that Sammy should not have been receiving the medication.

"When doctors began discussing the possibility of heart surgery, the parents decided to leave without a proper discharge in order to have the child examined elsewhere."

This decision would eventually result in the Nikolayevs getting a visit at their home from local police, who reportedly slammed Alex down to the ground and took baby Sammy into custody. The child was eventually returned to his parents after they filed a civil lawsuit, but not before being held captive at Sutter, where medical faculty are apparently too inept to provide proper care.

To learn more about your rights as both a patient and a parent within the mainstream medical paradigm, be sure to check out the following resources:
NLM.NIH.gov and CNN.com.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.anh-usa.org

http://www.naturalnews.com

http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com

http://www.nlm.nih.gov

http://www.cnn.com

http://www.bostonglobe.com