Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Fetal Abuse

Fetal Abuse (blog entry by Christine W. #AI107304-9FM)

We have heard of spousal abuse, child abuse - even animal abuse. Many laws exist to protect these different victims. Most of these laws have been in practice for a number of years. I had not heard of the term 'fetal abuse' until recently. However, one could say it is a new name for an old problem.

What is society to do with a pregnant woman who will not take responsibility for the health of her unborn child? In the recent past, the majority of women that fell into this category would have been those who continued to drink alcohol even though they knew it would harm their unborn son or daughter. Now, with illegal drugs being available almost anywhere and creating new addicts on a daily basis - there are now many more ways for the pregnant woman to jeopardize the health of the fetus.

At what point should the law step in? This behavior certainly seems to quality as child abuse. Do we arrest her and put her in jail? Do we charge here with a criminal offense or just a misdemeanor? Or do we force her to participate in a rehab program?

Well, guesss what - states are already enacting laws that allow these women to be arrested. In recent months, pregnant women have been arrested and jailed in South Carolina, New Mexico, Arizona, Alabama, Colorado, Georgia, Missouri, North Dakota and New Hampshire (among other states) claiming that pregnant women can be considered child abusers even before they have given birth.

South Carolina has been the toughest so far. Their Supreme Court declared in 1997 that drug-using pregnant women can be prosecuted criminally - and sentenced to as many as 10 years in prison. The attorney general there says that he will only prosecute pregnant women that use illegal drugs - not alcohol. (However, alcohol is still the leading cause of preventable mental retardation in infants.) It was the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, that started a program of testing pregnant women for drug use, and turning over their findings to police. It was done as a 'last resort' because they were seeing more and more pregnant drug users.

So, will this solve the problem? Many say absolutely not. Public health and child welfare groups say that most of these women want to stop using, but cannot; and threat-based approaches will not deter women from using drugs but will only prevent them from seeking prenatal care and any voluntary treatment programs that could be abailable for them.

And then one has to consider the health risks both mother and child face if she is forced to give birth in prison. Whil researching this, I read some shocking and extremely sad stories of women giving birth in prison. Sometimes the conditions would be deplorable. Sometimes the women would be left alone by custody to have the child without help from anyone. Although international law and treaties signed by the United States prohibit the shackling of pregnant and birthing women, Amnesty International USA reports that only two states - Illinois and California - have banned this practice here at home in the United States.

So, is rehabilitation the answer? It has been around for a while. Would this problem have been worse without it? The educational materials about the dangers of drug and alcohol use while pregnant is certainly available. And we know society supports rehab programs - is there enough money out there to do this successfully though? Is education at a very early age possibly part of the solution? I wish I had the answer, or even part of it.

(I would like to acknowledge Lynn M. Paltrow; Vince Beiser; Julie Ehrlich - authors of various articles that I used for this blog.)

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