Off track over baby's welfare

It's a little — check that, a lot — late, but there's no question freeing Tina Marie Carlsen today is the right thing to do.

But how is it we got so off track we treated a mom concerned about her baby's health care as if she were a menace to society? The more I learn about the case of Carlsen and her 9-month-old boy, Riley Rogers, the more outrageous I find it that she ever spent a minute — let alone five days — in a King County jail cell.

Carlsen allegedly sneaked her baby out of Children's Hospital rather than allow doctors to do surgery on him.

She did this though the boy was no longer technically hers. The state took custody nearly two weeks earlier in a bid to force the kidney procedure.

There's a highly charged debate here about who ultimately should control a child's emergency medical care. And whether this baby actually needs this particular surgery in order to survive.

Both are hard to judge because neither the state nor the doctors are telling their sides of this story.

But the way Carlsen was basically hounded like a fugitive casts doubt on every authority in this case, from doctors to police to prosecutors to judges.

Take the Amber Alert issued on Carlsen last week. Amber Alerts trigger a loose nationwide manhunt, and are used when children are in imminent danger. It landed Carlsen on the Web site for "America's Most Wanted."

When making the alert, Seattle police said that if the baby did not get emergency treatment, he would die.

It turns out that wasn't true, as doctors later admitted. Now police say they probably wouldn't have issued the alert had they known Riley wasn't in imminent danger.

Or take the extreme $500,000 bail set on Carlsen. It's three times the bail for Susan West, the serial drunken driver who killed a pedestrian nine years ago and was caught this month driving drunk again.

Or take the bizarre no-contact order from King County. It barred Carlsen from seeing her son or the boy's father, which might be defensible, but went on to say she also couldn't be around "other minor children."

It's as if she were some sort of predator. Not a mom with strong feelings about her baby's health care.

Prosecutors now say she can go free. Great. So why did they lock her up at all? Apparently she spent her time in stir pumping breast milk that could have gone to her baby.

No doubt there are times the state should take custody of children. Maybe this is one of them — maybe Riley desperately needs that surgery. But the overreaction by nearly everyone involved has seriously undermined that cause.

The same thing happened in Utah in 2003. That state tried to force chemotherapy on a 12-year-old named Parker Jensen. His parents "kidnapped" him and fled. Long story short, the state backed down, Parker never had chemo and, as of today, is doing fine.

In Utah, laws were rewritten to restrict the state's ability to take over as parent.

Here, it doesn't feel like we need new rules. What's been lacking in the case of Tina Marie Carlsen is some heart and soul.

Danny Westneat's column appears Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com.