Dan Dorn won’t get his wish after all, but then again neither will his ex-wife… or their three children.
A judge finally made a decision in the case of the brain damaged mother whose parents were looking to secure more visitation time for her with the triplets she gave birth to in 2006.
According to ABC News, Judge Fredrick Shaller ordered that Abbie Dorn will be allowed five-day visits once a year, where her children will travel to see her for three hours each day at her parents’ home in South Carolina. During the visits only Dorn, her ex-husband Dan Dorn and their three young children are to be present.
Dan Dorn went to court because he didn’t feel the children should “have to be exposed” to their brain damaged mother on a regular basis until they were six or seven years old. This, despite the fact that 34-year-old Abbie suffered severe brain trauma as a result of giving birth to triplets.
Today, Abbie cannot move or speak. However, a judge ruled that Abbie’s physical and mental state shouldn’t prevent her from bonding with her kids.
According to the ruling, in addition to the five-day visits, Abbie will also get to see her kids via Skype for 30 minutes on the first Sunday of each month “in an attempt to maintain a parental relationship with them.” The judge noted that during the Skype sessions, the kids will be able to watch their mother receive music therapy or their grandfather can read them a story with Abbie in the room.
The ruling also requires Dan Dorn to display photographs of Abbie on a table or shelf in the children’s bedrooms, something he has been opposed to doing since he filed for divorce from his ex-wife after she was diagnosed with severe brain damage. Dorn was hoping to delay visitations with the children’s mother for another year or two, but the judge put the kibosh on his plans.
“The children need to have a relationship with their mother established before she dies,” the judge noted. “The court finds that even though Abbie cannot interact with the children, the children can interact with Abbie — and that the interaction is beneficial for the children. They can touch her, see her, bond with her, and can carry these memories with them.”
The court’s ruling aside, I still think it’s unconscionable of Dan Dorn to try to keep the triplets from seeing their mother. After all, Abbie wouldn’t even be in the state she’s in if it were not for the fact that she conceived and carried those kids to term, but perhaps, Dan Dorn forgot that the stork doesn’t deliver babies. News flash Dan: Human beings are not just put on this earth to be incubators, and then be discarded when they no longer meet your expectations.
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