Prosecutors throughout the country are charging women who use alcohol and other drugs while pregnant with serious crimes, the Chicago Tribune reported Nov. 23.Criminal charges ranging from misdemeanor counts of endangering the welfare of a child to criminal homicide are being brought against pregnant women who are using alcohol or other drugs.
Arizona, California, Hawaii, New York, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah are among the states that are taking an aggressive stand on pregnant women using drugs.
In Riverside County, Calif., District Attorney Grover Trask said the prosecutions are a top priority. "Sometimes the cases and the effects of drug abuse on children and infants are so egregious that I believe we are left with no other option but to prosecute," he said.
Abortion rights supporters are speaking out against the charges, arguing that a fetus is not a constitutionally protected person.
And Lynn Paltrow, director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, said prosecuting these women is not a solution to the addiction problem. "People don't become addicts because they want to do harm to their own bodies or, if they are pregnant, to harm the fetus in their body," Paltrow said.
She said the prosecutions could discourage other pregnant women from seeking treatment or prenatal care out of fear of ending up in jail or losing custody of their other children.
About 50 public-heath organizations, including the American Public Health Association and the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry, are against the prosecutions for the same reason.
"This has become a general assault on poor people, and disproportionately on minorities," said Richard Wexler, director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform. "Take a guess which pregnant women are most likely to be screened for drug abuse when they walk through the doors of a hospital. It isn't some upper- or middle-class woman who can afford the best of everything. But those women often are just as likely to be using substances during pregnancy that put their child at risk."
"This is certainly a complicated one," said Dr. Mary Ellen Rimsza, chairwoman of Arizona's Child Fatality Review Board and a member of a commission studying whether drug-using pregnant women should be charged with child abuse.
Rimsza said an effective policy would be one that focuses more on public health and less on public law.
"There is no evidence that prosecutions will do any good in terms of prevention of these behaviors." she said, "and it doesn't do any good for the baby who's already died."
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