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Infant’s tragic death highlights the urgent need for child protection reform | Opinion
Amia Bickerstaff died Tuesdaylucky cola, blackened, blistered and blameless in the University of Kansas burn unit. She was 18 months old.
Amia is the third Bickerstaff child to die in what police described as a 105 mph rear-ender wreck that set two cars ablaze and killed another man. One of those kids, Amilia, was 11 days old. The other, Amiliana, was a 5-year old. They, like the 70-year-old man from Iowa, were too broken and burnt to go to the hospital, but all three were also blameless.
Their mom, the driver, is in the Kansas burn unit too. Rachel Bickerstaff is lucky her own blood didn’t catch fire — its alcohol content was .0216, nearly three times the legal limit. The nurses who cared for both Rachel and Amia in Omaha called the tiny girl’s desperate struggle to live as “haunting.”
This isn’t the first time Rachel’s drinking caused an accident. She was convicted of drunk driving after an accident in 2020. She paid an $800 fine and was on probation with an interlock device to prevent drunk driving for six months. She had a 1-year-old then.
This also isn’t the first time any reasonable observer would question whether she’s a fit mom. She had four other kids taken away by the state of Nebraska before that drunk driving conviction. Details are still emerging about what happened with those kids.
Across the country, the lives of our youngest children are at the center of our politics. In Missouri and Nebraska, abortion laws will be on the ballot in just a few weeks. Kamala Harris has made abortion rights a centerpiece of her campaign while Republicans are blasting her running mate Tim Walz for allowing children to die who were born after botched abortions in Minnesota. Eight of them.
I have strong opinions on all those issues, but I hope that when the dust settles, we’ll come together and do something about the casual way that the lives of older children are just tossed away here in the little corner of the Midwest we’re so proud to call home.
One doesn’t have to look back long or search far to find outrageous deaths of children at the hands of people who should be caring for them:
In 2023, Iowa paid out $10 million to the siblings of a 16-year-old who died of malnourishment in foster care weighing just 56 pounds after it was found their adoptive parents were at fault.In Missouri, 2-year-old Jozi Woodall died in August under mysterious circumstances after living in a foster home where the walls were covered in feces. In 2023, 11 Kansas children died in foster care.In Nebraska, a foster mother was arrested in July for the death of a 5-year-old boy she was supposed to be caring for. The year before, more than 20 kids died in state custody.These preventable deaths are so frequent across the country that they don’t make national news. Plenty die from the neglect and abuse of parents, but they are far more likely to die under the care of non-family members. Foster kids are far more likely to die than kids who are adopted or live with their parents. Hundreds die in custody nationwide every year.
Amia Bickerstaff died at the hands of her drunken mother who never should have had custody of her innocent life. Let’s have our fight about abortion this November, but when it’s over,we should broaden our focus to consider saving the lives we all agree are precious, too.
David Mastio, a former editor and columnist for USA Today, is a regional editor for The Center Square and a regular Star Opinion correspondent. Follow him on X: @DavidMastio or email him at [email protected]
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