Ethics of Prosecuting Pregnant Women Ethical

The Ethics of Prosecuting Pregnant Women

Ethical behavior is behavior that conforms to a given community's morals. Morals, speaking generally, are a community's standards for what is right. The Constitution of the United States incorporates morals into its governing principles. The Preamble states that "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Thus the Founding Fathers recognized certain morals of American society, including among them justice, the general welfare and liberty. The purpose of the Constitution was to ensure the protection of these fundamental rights. Thus, legal action in the United States is right and ethical in the United States when it conforms to these fundamental morals of American society. This paper explores the ethics of criminal prosecutions of women for prenatal drug use.

Criminal Prosecution of Women for Prenatal Drug Use

Since the 1980s, politicians have turned their attention to the physical and mental damage experienced by children who are born to mother who used drugs during their pregnancy (See Marwick, 1998, p. 1039). This attention has resulted in these women being charged with criminal offenses including drug possession or distribution, delivery of a contro

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imed at preserving the women's relationships with their children once the children are born (180). Criminal prosecutions only result in the separation of the child and the mother at the most critical stage of the child's development. Nonetheless, some ethicists argue that health care providers and prosecutors have a moral obligation to protect the rights of the fetus. Prenatal drug use does pose a risk to the unborn child and they are bound to act, even in their actions might violate the rights of the pregnant woman (Harris & Paltrow, 2003, p. 1697). For example, some bioethical models posit that fetuses have a right to medical attention independent of the pregnant women's consent. But in these cases, the question becomes one between the rights of the unborn child and the rights of the mother. In 2001, the United States Supreme Court addressed this issue. In Ferguson v City of Charleston, 532 US 67, 72 n.5 (2001), the Court considered whether hospital personnel could test a pregnant woman for drugs without a warrant. The Court said no, holding that pregnant women retained their Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable or warrantless searches, even when the search (the drug test) was conducted with the stated purpose

Category: Government - E