Is This a Fair Situation to Take Away Parent Custody?

If you had won parent custody of your children in your divorce, or even if you had it because your spouse had deceased, and it was taken away for medical reasons that could be resolved, do you think it would be fair for a court to permanently take away those custody rights because something outside of your control prevented you from fully complying with the case parenting plan? This is something that actually happened in Florida recently and was subsequently overturned by an appeals court. The question is, which court was actually right?

In this case, the mother lost custody of her children because she had to take some prescription drugs for a medical condition that she has. The drugs themselves are narcotic. Due to this, the parent custody plan that was put forth by the court ruled that she was to work with the University of Miami to find a non-narcotic solution for her. She was poor and couldn’t afford to pay the large fee that the University required. She applied for aid and was put on a waiting list, but because of this, couldn’t get the plan completed in the time that was allowed by the court.

Now really, none of this issue was the mother’s fault. She was following a doctor’s orders to try to help with her condition. The doctor’s orders were to take some narcotic drugs to help with the pain that she had due to the condition. These drugs though, were also the cause behind her parent custody rights being taken away. She wasn’t abusing them or anything like that. It would just be a matter that she wasn’t able to sufficiently take care of the children due to her condition and the state that the drugs put her in.

Admittedly, she honestly wasn’t able to take care of the children, thus the parent custody plan from the court. But just because she was made to wait, even though she did everything that she could to satisfy the court, and it was just a matter of things outside her control that wouldn’t allow her to make the courts timetable, does that mean that she should permanently lose rights to her children?

Normally I have a pretty strong opinion on things, one way or the other, but this is one of those that’s squarely in the middle. If she had been abusing the drugs, or if she had just sat back and done nothing, then I would side more with the initial court’s ruling. At the same time though, there is a reason why courts put timetables on things. This is really the thing. Both sides could be argued well.

Let me know what your opinion on this is. Convince me of you point of view. And don’t leave just short answers for this one. Put some thought into it. Show me your passion, on either side of the argument.