The Ethics of Prosecuting Pregnant Women
Ethical behavior is behavior that conforms to a given communityÆs morals. Morals, speaking generally, are a communityÆs standards for what is right. The Constitution of the United States incorporates morals into its governing principles. The Preamble states that ôWe 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.ö 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 controlled substance to a minor, criminal child abuse and criminal child neglect (Kubasek, 1999, p. 167). Historically, some courts refused to allow prosecutions of such on the grounds that the word ôchildö in the laws under which these early prosecutions were brought did not refer to unborn children (Kubasek, 1999, p. 168). In one case, the Florida Supreme Court overturned a womanÆs conviction for delivering a controlled substance to a person under 18 on t...