One of the worst abuses of American slavery was the fact that slave owners could take a mother's children away from her and sell them to someone else.

The corrupt Vermont court system is treating Lisa Miller and her daughter Isabella like they are slaves. A compassionless judge named William Cohen has forced Miller to leave the country to avoid having to turn her daughter Isabella over to a woman who is unrelated to Isabella.

While Lisa Miller was being treated at a state hospital for a suicide attempt, hospital personnel, of unknown sexual orientation, suggested to Lisa that she might be homosexual. Instead of going to an objective psychiatrist for evaluation she went to the homosexual run Whitman-Walker health clinic in the Washington, D.C., area where, not surprisingly, she was told she was homosexual. She subsequently developed a relationship with Janet Jenkins and decided to be artificially inseminated to have a child in 2002. The couple split up a year later.

Miller moved to Virginia and decided she didn't like the homosexual lifestyle, probably because she wasn't a homosexual to begin with. Initially there was a visitation arrangement for Isabella with Jenkins. Miller says she cut off the visitations because Isabella was uncomfortable with the visitations and according to Miller had talked of suicide.

Isabella's talk of suicide could indicate Jenkins was sexually abusing her. The National Institute of Health has reported an increased risk of suicide among abused children. Sexual abuse of children can be difficult to deal with. Some children may be reluctant to talk about incidents. Other children may invent incidents.. Some abusers don't consider what they are doing to be wrong even though society might disagree. One of the best examples is singer Michael Jackson not thinking he was doing anything wrong by sleeping in the same bed with young boys.

If there was physical contact, Jenkins might thought of it as as mother daughter thing, but Isabella might have thought of the contact with Jenkins in terms of Jenkins' past physical relationship with Isabella's biological mother.

Judge Cohen didn't bother to examine the situation, but instead decided to punish Miller for not accepting his arbitrary orders by giving Jenkins custody of the child she is not biologically related to. In a traditional marriage relationship the male partner has a right to share custody of a child if he is the biological father. There is no legitimate reason to grant an equal right to custody of a mother's child to a male or female partner who is not biologically related to the child. Only the mother should be allowed to decide if custody should be shared.

Granting custody rights to a non-related partner in effect makes the mother a slave. She becomes like the slave mothers whose children could be arbitrarily taken away from them and given to other unrelated individuals.

Vermont, or at least Judge Cohen, apparently supports some version of the archaic notion that a mother is the property of her partner and cannot act independently. Cohen apparently doesn't believe that a mother has a right to protect her child from questionable behavior by someone the child is not biologically related to.

Homosexuality isn't the only type of behavior a mother might conceivably object to in a former partner. Let's consider the hypothetical situation of a mother who has adopted a vegan lifestyle and doesn't want her child to have to spend time with a former partner who might feed the child meat that the mother believes is unhealthy and morally wrong. The difference between the mother and former partner wouldn't need to be that great. The mother might be concerned that the former partner had unhealthy eating habits and would feed the child a lot of potato chips, candy, fatty foods, sugary drinks, etc..

Janet Jenkins is a woman. Unless she has some medical problem that prevents pregnancy, she can have her own baby. Lisa Miller worked 24 hours a day for nine months to make Isabella. Lisa's body made Isabells without any help from the government or Janet Jenkins. If Janet Jenkins wants a child she should have one of her own and stop trying to use a corrupt court system to steal Lisa Miller's child. Lisa Miller is supposed to be a free woman not a slave. The government shouldn't be able to treat her like a slave whose child can arbitrarily be taken away and given to someone else.