TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/052289/05228900.007

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 5.5 KB | 109 lines

                                                                                LAW, Page 104

Here Come the Pregnancy Police


Mothers of drug-exposed infants face legal punishment


    Bianca Green was born in February suffering from severe
oxygen deprivation, and died two days later. Hospital
authorities in Rockford, Ill., soon found signs of what they
believed was the cause of death: cocaine in the baby's urine,
as well as in the bloodstream of her 24-year-old mother Melanie.
Last week local law-enforcement officials arrested Melanie Green
and charged her with involuntary manslaughter and supplying
drugs to a minor.

    Such actions are becoming increasingly common in the U.S.
With the rising number of babies exposed to drugs before birth,
prosecutors around the country are seeking to punish women who
harm their fetuses by taking illegal substances. Examples:

    When Casandra Gethers of Hollywood, Fla., gave birth to her
second cocaine-addicted infant, she was arrested in February
and charged with child abuse. Her baby was placed in foster
care.

    Arrested for forging $800 worth of checks last year, Brenda
Vaughan of Washington was given a drug test that revealed
cocaine use. Since she was a first-time offender and a
mother-to-be, a lenient prosecutor merely recommended probation.
Instead, the judge sent Vaughan to jail for nearly four months
in order to protect the fetus. The baby was born healthy.

    Pamela Rae Stewart spent a week in a San Diego jail in 1986
on charges that she had failed to provide for her baby by
defying her doctor's advice to stop using street drugs during
pregnancy. Stewart's child was born brain damaged and died six
weeks later. The charges were eventually dropped.

    Advocates of legal intervention point to the tragic
consequences of drug taking during pregnancy. Experts estimate
that 375,000 newborns a year have been exposed to illegal
drugs, frequently cocaine. Cocaine babies, as they are called,
are more likely to be born prematurely or to die before birth.
They tend to be abnormally small and face an increased risk of
deformities or crib death. Moreover, there are strong
indications that all these babies suffer some form of
neurological damage. Says Darron Castiglione, supervisor of the
child-abuse division of the Hollywood, Fla., police department:
"These infants don't have a chance in life. They will never be
right, never be whole people, through no fault of their own.
These babies can only blame the mother."

    That approach, however, has raised the ire of many legal
experts and women's rights groups. "These cases are attacks on
women," says Lynn Paltrow of the A.C.L.U.'s Reproductive
Freedom Project. "If states pass laws that make maternal
behavior a crime against the fetus, and if the state can create
prenatal police patrols for cocaine use, then where would they
draw the line?" Opponents note that alcohol use, smoking and
other kinds of maternal conduct have also been shown to damage
fetuses. Says Paltrow: "For some women, standing on their feet
all day is harmful. Will they arrest them too?"

    There is an additional concern among foes of legal
intervention. They fear that the real goal in these cases may
be an unspoken one: an end run around the U.S. Supreme Court's
landmark abortion case, Roe v. Wade. That 1973 decision found
that the rights of the mother, rather than the fetus, are
primary. Says Leslie Harris of the A.C.L.U.: "Those who want to
rush in and criminalize the behavior of women are pushing a
different agenda than prenatal care. If they can persuade the
courts that a woman who chooses to carry a child to term has
obvious legal obligations, how could she at the same time have
the right to abort the fetus?"

    One fact that is not in dispute is the desperate lack of
medical facilities to help pregnant women with drug problems.
In California, for example, there are only five full-time
drug-treatment programs that accept pregnant women, and waiting
lists are up to six months long. Some doctors are concerned
that by threatening to prosecute pregnant drug users, officials
will end up driving away even those women who could be assisted.
"This sends a clear message to the women most in need of
prenatal health, that it is dangerous for them to get help,"
says Dr. Ira Chasnoff, president of the National Association for
Perinatal Addiction Research and Education. "It's a punitive
approach that is being taken out of frustration by the legal and
medical communities."

    Nonetheless, there seems to be substantial public support
for the notion that a woman should be held accountable for her
actions during pregnancy. A Gallup poll conducted for
Hippocrates magazine last year found that 48% of those who
responded agreed that a woman who smokes or drinks during
pregnancy should be legally liable for damage to her infant.

    With no end in sight for the current epidemic of drug use,
it appears that pregnant women will increasingly be held
accountable for behavior that jeopardizes their babies' health.
"These cases are really mounting," says Harvard law professor
Kathleen Sullivan, "and prosecutors are going to go wild until
the courts stop them." Despite criticism of his actions,
Winnebago County state's attorney Paul Logli, who is prosecuting
the manslaughter and drug charges against Green, stands by his
policy. Says he: "This is not a fetal-rights case or a
pro-choice case or a pro-life case. We're dealing with a child
who was born and lived two days."