SUBSTANCE ABUSE AMONG PREGNANT WOMEN

SUBSTANCE ABUSE AMONG PREGNANT WOMEN: PUBLIC POLICY APPROACHES

This research paper examines and discusses the public policy approaches taken by state and federal authorities in the United States to the problems presented by the ingestion by pregnant women of illegal drugs or other substances which may be hazardous to the health of the fetuses they carry.

Beginning in the 1960s, growing public awareness of the prevalence of child abuse led to the passage of federal and state legislation designed to afford greater protection to children. The increased use of illegal drugs, especially crack cocaine in the inner cities, resulted in the prosecution since the late 1980s of hundreds of women who had ingested dangerous drugs during their pregnancies. However, efforts to criminalize drug use during pregnancy have been almost universally rejected when they were tested in state courts and present serious federal constitutional barriers which have not yet been adjudicated. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court of one state, South Carolina, in 1996 legitimized such prosecutions and recently enacted fetal protection laws in a small number of other states could be used to facilitate such prosecutions. Meanwhile, laws permitting state child welfare agencies to obtain access to data relating to prenatal drug use derived from maternal postnatal drug tests have been used to justify the temporary and permanent removal of drug-affected babies from their mothers. Public policy considerations largel

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ly various state criminal statutes to justify prosecutions against drug-using or alcoholic mothers. As of 1997, Coady (1997, Summer) reported that 200 such prosecutions had been brought in 30 states (p. 670). Since at that time no feticide statutes had passed any state or territorial legislatures which explicitly authorized such prosecutions, they were brought under a variety of other laws, such as child abuse and endangerment laws, drug delivery to minors, drug possession and other penal statutes. Prior to 1996, whenever they were challenged, such prosecutions or convictions flowing from them were universally struck down by state trial and appellate courts on various grounds. The courts so deciding were in Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, New York, Nevada, Ohio and Texas among others. An appellate court encapsulated the views of most state courts when it said in its opinion in Johnson v. State, 1992 WL 171213 (Fla. 1992) in dismissing such a prosecution, "the court declines the state's invitation to walk down a path that the law, public policy, reason, and common sense forbid it to tread." Despite these court rulings, some polls indicated that such prosecutions were popular, especially in the South. Cu

Category: Psychology - S