Parents defend fugitives

The state may consider Daren and Barbara Jensen fugitives, but members of a resurgent parental rights movement in Utah say they can't blame the couple for taking off.

They say it is the latest in a long line of examples of the state's child welfare system wrongly injecting itself into a family matter then turning parents who don't do exactly what they're told into criminals.

The Jensens took their 12-year-old son, who has cancer, out of state to avoid a court order placing him in foster care and requiring chemotherapy. As of Saturday, the boy and his mother, believed to be in Houston, had not been found. The father has been arrested in Pocatello on a first-degree felony kidnapping charge and is awaiting an extradition hearing.

"Their son is not the government's, he's their child, and they have the right to direct his medical care," said Connie Roska, a Layton mother and parent advocate who in the wake of unfounded medical neglect allegations in 1999 filed and won on appeal the first part of a federal constitutional rights violation lawsuit against the state. The rest of her case is still before U.S. District Court.

"I think whatever they feel is right," said Roska, whose son was returned a week after being taken into state custody. "They're the ones who have to live with it, not the state. The state has again jumped in where they shouldn't be. That's their child having medical problems, and really it's like the state deciding they have a right over who lives and who dies."

Another parent advocate, Joyce Kinmont, said she believes the state is going way too far.

"The state should drop all charges against this family and issue an apology to all parents in Utah," Kinmont said. "This all just adds a lot of stress to a family that has enough to deal with."

Utah Attorney General's Office spokesman Paul Murphy has said there is more to the Jensen story, but state attorneys are under court order not to discuss the case with news reporters. Privacy laws also prevent hospital officials from talking about the case.

But people are talking about the difficult and emotional issues in the state's child welfare system the case highlights. For better or worse, the current system relies on the courts to adjudicate disputes between parents and state attorneys. Judges are called upon to hear arguments from both sides and entrusted with the decisionmaking.