(IntegrityPress.org) – Emily Donlin is a mother from Iowa who’s recently endured a bout of government harassment over a faulty drug test which initially reported cocaine being found on her umbilical cord post-birth of her infant child.
She maintained throughout the ordeal that she has never done cocaine in her life and avoids things like Aspirin and Tylenol for minor discomforts due to her religious beliefs. The ordeal began when she took her newborn son Paul to the hospital after a successful home birth to make sure everything was OK, and everything seemed fine until two weeks later.
The Donlin’s got a visit from the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) that said Paul had a test come back positive for cocaine. She said that was impossible, having never taken the drug in her life and suggested there was a process error of some sort in the testing pipeline.
Despite allowing DHHS to search their home, examine their children, and interview both Emily and her husband that wasn’t the end of the accusations and demands for further review by the agents involved. They began a 20-day investigation which included a requirement Emily be supervised when with her children by either her husband or mother.
The Donlins presumed that compliance would prove their innocence, but that wouldn’t occur for some time yet. Emily was subject to multiple rounds of drug testing, she even voluntarily had a hair test done which showed she had no drugs in her system for the previous year, including the entire time she was pregnant.
She also received notice that she was added to a child abuse registry without any explanation. DHHS then demanded she comply with “voluntary services” but wouldn’t tell her what they were unless she agreed to them. It was only later that they discovered in court those “services” included randomized drug testing.
DHHS even refused to behave following a court ruling at one point in the process. They recommended the children be placed in foster care, and demanded more drug testing, but thankfully at the second hearing, their case was dismissed. At that point, Emily had taken 7 separate drug tests that all showed negative.
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