The ruling was made in the case of Tonya Kimbrough of Canton, Ohio. Kimbrough lost custody of her son shortly after his birth when it was determined that she smoked crack cocaine during her pregnancy. The baby was born with signs of addiction, and cocaine was found in his urine.

The case reached the state Supreme Court after an appellate court upheld the removal of the baby from his mother's custody. Kimbrough, who has given birth to two other sons with drug addictions, appealed the custody decision, claiming her drug use occurred before the boy's birth and that Ohio's child-abuse laws don't protect fetuses.

In making its ruling, the court found it unnecessary to address the larger issue of whether a fetus is legally a child as defined in the state's child-abuse laws. Under the law, an abused child is any child who, because of the acts of his parents, suffers physical or mental injury that harms or threatens to harm the child's health or welfare.

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