posted May 06, 2014 09:00 AM            

quote:

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Tennessee has become the first state in the nation to pass a law criminalizing women for their pregnancy outcomes. Republican Gov. Bill Haslam took the 10 days allotted to him to consider the advice of doctors, addiction experts and reproductive health groups urging him to veto the punitive and dangerous measure that allows prosecutors to charge a woman with criminal assault if she uses illegal drugs during her pregnancy and her fetus or newborn is considered harmed as a result. Haslam ignored these recommendations — and the recommendations of nearly every major medical association, including the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy — and signed the measure anyway.

Opponents of the new law share a concern that a lack of access to health care and treatment facilities will result in the disproportionate targeting and jailing of poor mothers and mothers of color, particularly in rural districts throughout the state.

Republican state Sen. Mike Bell, one of the seven Republicans in the state Senate to vote against the measure (every Democrat in the state Senate voted in favor), recently told Salon that this lack of access is a problem he thinks will hurt the women of his district and their families. “I represent a rural district,” he said. “There’s no treatment facility for these women there, and it would be a substantial drive for a woman caught in one of these situations to go to an approved treatment facility. Looking at the map of the state, there are several areas where this is going to be a problem.”

Only two of the state’s 177 addiction treatment facilities that provide on-site prenatal care allow older children to stay with their mothers while they are undergoing treatment. And only 19 of these facilities offer any addiction care specifically oriented toward pregnant women. Tennessee has also refused the Medicaid expansion, leaving many women without reliable access to basic medical or prenatal care, much less drug treatment.

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posted May 06, 2014 10:37 AM            

But I can remember the day when women stopped smoking and drinking when they became pregnant...to protect their baby.

Is it too much to ask of women that they stop using hard drugs during their pregnancies?

How about this.

posted May 06, 2014 01:50 PM            

But what if I hadn't? What if I took it all the time and miscarried?

What if I had a glass of wine or a beer and miscarried?

I totally get that someone doing crack while pregnant is horrifying and personally I find it disgusting. Especially as someone that now has been trying to get pregnant for 5 years and can't.... but I've heard pro-life people that want to investigate every miscarriage to see if the woman is at fault and that is complete and utter madness. How are you going to regulate what a woman puts in her body while pregnant?

And won't prosecuting drug abusers just prevent them from getting prenatal care to begin with? Or prevent them from giving birth in a hospital? Or prevent them from taking a sick baby to a hospital so the baby ends up in a dumpster?

posted May 06, 2014 04:33 PM            

Big can of worms and fodder for the prison industry
ifnyou ask me!

A lot of legal drugs are more likely to cause problems in childbearing and rearing than many illegal ones.

posted May 08, 2014 08:40 AM            

Another problem is, as the article indicated, there aren't enough resources available to impoverished women to help them quit their addictions. The money spent jailing them would be better spent rehabilitating them...in a more psychologically healthy environment (stress is toxic to a growing fetus.)

posted May 08, 2014 08:40 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Randall:
I think the point should be that if it's an illegal drug, it's used during pregnancy, and it results in damage to the baby, then there should be legal consequences.

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What about legal drugs that damage the baby? Will there be any incentive for the government to track that? And then who's to blame?

What about foods that damage the baby?

If a pregnant woman develops pre-enclampsia from excessive salt intake elevating her blood pressure (and not all women react to salt this way), that could seriously threaten the baby. Do we start monitoring all pregnant women's diets?

I actually know a woman who couldn't keep down anything but hot dogs and white flour soft pretzels when she was pregnant. Her first child was stillborn, her next child had serious health problems.

Prison for her?

What if a woman eats food that she is allergic to, and that damages the baby?

posted May 09, 2014 09:42 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Catalina:
How are you going to determine which substance harmed the baby? Plenty of normal babies have been born to users of illegal substances, how does anyone know the baby would have been normal in another scenario?

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^^^
This.

How about cigarettes? I guess those can't be smoked even though those are legal? Pot is legal in many places now.

Vicodin? Codeine?

Did you know Ibuprofen can cause early miscarriages? ((so can caffeine!))