Local Mother Demands Custody of Daughter, Protection of Black Parental Rights 

For months, Aziyrah Peters has been at odds with administrators at the Hospital for Sick Children Pediatric Center in Northeast about the medical care that her daughter, Ramyah Peters, has been receiving for pulmonary hypertension. 

Since Ramyah’s birth, when doctors diagnosed her with the condition, Peters, a mother of three, has rebuffed conventional treatments. Instead, she advocated for homeopathic medicine, which consists of natural, holistic remedies that are not recognized by the medical establishment. 

While Peters, against the wishes of doctors, successfully secured Ramyah’s removal from an oxygenation machine, she lost custody of Ramyah amid her recent efforts to prevent doctors from giving her ambrisentan, a prescription oral medication known to cause swelling of the face, strained breathing and fatigue. 

Peters’ hearing with D.C. Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) is scheduled for April, around Ramyah’s second birthday. In the interim, she continues to take child care classes mandated by CFSA, a process she said she navigated long before losing custody in December.  

“It’s been stressful on my family. The hospital is not considerate,” Peters said. “I didn’t want Ramyah on the medication and they said it was the only medication.”

“They don’t care,” Peters added. “They’re bullying me and forcing me. They called CFSA on me. They’re not helping me.”

A Snow Day Protest in Front of a Medical Center 

On Jan. 16, as snow shovels and snow plows cleared District sidewalks and streets, Peters and several others converged on the steps of the Hospital for Sick Children Pediatric Center for an early morning protest. 

Peters told The Informer that she organized the act of civil disobedience upon learning days earlier that hospital administrators organized a Russian same-sex couple’s visit with Ramyah. The couple, Peters said, was vying to become foster parents while Peters was still engaging CFSA for custody. 

Later, while standing outside of the Hospital for Sick Children Pediatric Center, Peters said that hospital officials told her that the foster parents were no longer coming to the facility, which she celebrated as a victory. 

By that time, she, along with a cadre of local mothers, D.C. Council member Trayon White (D-Ward 8), and representatives of the ADS Collective and Parent Watch, had been standing in front of the Hospital for Sick Children Pediatric Center with signs in hand. 

Signs ran the gamut, from photos of Ramyah with her birth parents to “Stop CPS from Medical Kidnapping,” “Medical Kidnapping: A Threat to the Black Family in America Today,” and even “Support Masculine Heterosexual Black Men.”

Peters, who saw Ramyah that morning, described her baby girl as healthy and vibrant. She said that has been the case throughout much of Ramyah’s life, despite doctors’ insistence that Ramyah was unfit to leave the hospital and that, at one point, her condition was going to kill her.   

As Peters recounted, Ramyah, from her moment of birth, underwent extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), a process by which doctors surgically connect a person to a machine that provides cardiac and respiratory support. Peters said she successfully petitioned for the ECMO’s removal, even though doctors advised her against it. 

Peters Fights for Respect of Black Families and Religious Beliefs 

Peters would endure a similar battle over Ramyah’s prescription medicine, which she was concerned would affect the development of Ramyah’s reproductive organs, and ultimately her legacy. As she continues to fight for custody of Ramyah, Peters said she wants to promote a call for the preservation of the Black family. 

“When they think you’re uneducated, they don’t know what happens when the community comes together,” said Peters, a D.C. resident who practices Islam. 

“We got to support the structure of Black families, which is a Black mother and a Black father. Stop letting [CFSA] take our children and put them with mothers and mothers and fathers and fathers. The Black family structure is Black mothers and Black fathers.” 

In 2021, the Supreme Court unanimously sided with Catholic Social Services (CSS), a Philadelphia-based adoption agency that, based on its religious beliefs, refused to work with same-sex foster parents. 

In the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the city of Philadelphia, in denying CSS an exemption from the local nondiscrimination policy, violated the free exercise clause of the First Amendment that was understood to protect religious practice. 

Much to Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s  chagrin, Roberts didn’t indict a 1990 precedent, Employment Division v. Smith, that allowed Philadelphia to refuse CSS’ exemption from the nondiscrimination policy. His opinion, which mirrored that of some anti-LGBTQ groups, said Roberts “narrow” reasoning would make the effects of the decision temporary at best. 

Over the past few years, a burgeoning parental rights movement, involving people of various religious backgrounds, has made similar efforts to prevent schools from teaching about LGBTQ issues without parental permission.

In her crusade, Peters said she wants to ensure that birth mothers and fathers maintain custody of their children. 

Those who stood in solidarity with Peters on Jan. 16, including Ward 8 Council member White and Jenise “Jo” Patterson of Parent Watch, spoke about what Jen Gilbert of the University of Toronto’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education described to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as greater efforts to limit government influence on people’s lives. 

“The system is making choices for our parents and our village,” White said. “We’re smarter than they think we are and together we can win the war against the assault on our children. We have to do all we can to make sure Ramyah receives the proper care and returns to her family.” 

Patterson took the dialogue a step further with a call for legislation that protects parents facing hurdles similar to Peters’. 

“We have proven that Ramyah’s still here,” Patterson said. “They wanted to pull the plug and the baby’s still here. Why can’t our institutions recognize that everything’s not about your title, but to take the position of human skills and human kindness and take a look at what’s happening? Stop making our social workers attack us.” 

A Mother with Similar Experiences Speaks 

D.C. law defines child neglect as the lack of food, shelter, supervision, education or medical care given to a child due to the actions of a parent. CFSA is required to investigate all reports of suspected child abuse and neglect. 

Upon receiving a report, CFSA’s Child Protective Services dispatches a social worker who then conducts an investigation, which includes interviews with the parents, all the children in the household and other relevant parties. 

The course of action taken by CFSA depends on the findings of the social worker’s investigation. 

CFSA declined to comment on Peters’ case. A spokesperson said that in any custody case, the agency works with parents to establish a case plan that addresses what they described as the “behavior issue that resulted in the accusations of abuse and neglect.” 

Collaboration, the spokesperson said, also involves working together to seek services that address the identified issues. While the court has the final say on whether a child can return home, both the child and parent are represented by legal counsel, the CFSA spokesperson said. 

Meanwhile, Children’s National Medical Center,  the partner entity of Hospital for Sick Children Pediatric Center, cited patient privacy in their refusal to comment about Ramyah’s condition, avenues that are available to parents who want to explore homeopathic treatment, and the circumstances of the alleged planned visit of the Russian couple. 

Titania L. Best, a mother of three, said she knows firsthand the perils of engagement with CFSA. More than 30 years ago, Best temporarily became a ward of the state when District police, and then CFSA, responded to a neighbor’s complaint about Best’s mother’s outburst in response to Best, then a baby, crying profusely. 

Best, now 33, said the cycle continued with her run-in with CFSA a couple of years ago. She told The Informer that she almost lost her children to the system during an investigation into the domestic violence she was experiencing. 

That situation, Best said, provided CFSA an opportunity to provide a scared, struggling parent with housing and resources. They instead went to what she described as extreme measures. 

“We have to provide the resources to allow parents to be parents,” Best, a Northwest resident, told The Informer. “It’s too much to even consider taking a child away before providing resources. CFSA didn’t want me to find services to be in a sound mind. They wanted a next of kin. They wanted solutions that aligned with their beliefs and the way the system is constructed.”