Copenhagen, Denmark: Ivana Bronlund is a mother without a child.

An hour after her daughter was born in a small town in Denmark, the government took her baby.

She continues to pump milk that someone picks up and carries to the infant. She stares out the large, square windows of her apartment building and constantly imagines holding her again.

Ivana Bronlund, 18, at the home she shares with her mother in Hedehusene, Denmark. Credit: Hilary Swift/The New York Times

“I just wish I’d been given the chance to prove that I can be a mother,” she said.

Bronlund is 18 years old and came from a home with a history of abuse. So Danish authorities subjected her to an extensive parental competency test that is intended to protect children but has been criticised as a harsh overreach into fami

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