Amanda — a great blog and frightening article about the potential of criminalizing pregnancies base on their outcome.

Thanks!

Paell, I think yours is the most compelling argument here.

Alcoholism is also an addiction. Is someone who drives while drunk also excused?

Come to think of it, we criminalize driving while drunk regardless of outcome. But, then again, getting knocked up isn’t the same as getting into a car.

And how exactly do you prove that?
Not only is “proving” the mother was a drug or alcohol abuser during her pregnancy quite difficult, unless she is tested for substance abuse at some point, but it is impossible, from a medical point of view, to demonstrate BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT that whatever abuse she indulged in resulted DIRECTLY in the baby’s death.
I won’t even get into the whole idea of “willful and malicious harm”, because it buys into the tired old idea that women who abuse substances while pregnant, just like those who abort, are just crazy bitches who love destroying cute babeeeez as a hobby. But then again, it seems to be exactly your opinion anyway.

If they could have stopped they would have, but they were as incapable of ending their drug use as someone who is diabetic is of processing glucose. Clearly, you do not believe that being an addict is an illness, but the Supreme Court has held to the contrary. Check out Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660 (1962), http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0370_0660_ZS.html

Using that logic, no crime should be punished since the damage has already been done. Is that what you want?

Why is it such a problem to hold someone responsible for damage inflicted on another person? You don’t happen to believe a fetus is a person but I do and so do a majority of people in this country. It’s pointless to argue that at the moment but since an unaborted fetus is likely to become a person, harm to that person should be punishable.

What we need to define is a standard of harm. Obviously, anything you do before knowing you are pregnant should not be prosecutable. The standard of proof for anything else should be pretty high. The prosecution would have to prove willful disregard for the life of the child. This would include drug and alcohol abuse. I’m sure there could be a few other categories I could come up with but I’ll let you use your imagination. We’re not talking about prosecuting women for not taking vitamins or even smoking or not following the advice of their OBGYN. I’m talking about prosecuting women for the willful and malicious harm. And yes, that should include abortion but let’s not even touch that right now. If a baby dies after it’s born and it can be PROVED that the mother was a drug or alcohol abuser after she found out she was pregnant and the prosecution can demonstrate this led directly to the death of the baby then she should be prosecuted.

[Wistfully] I wonder if I can persuade my employer that I’m pregnant, if only for a month or two…

Or, how wrong OBs can be by following the “general” case rather than looking at the specific case before them.

I’m convinced that my son was born early because my body had become a hostile environment for him, BECAUSE I was following the advice of my OB. At 27 weeks, I was identified as having gestational diabetes and put on a restricted diet to guard against having a “too big” baby. I had an ultrasound that week which guestimated le babe to be at the 50th percentile growth-wise at that point.

On the GD diet, I was actually having a hard time keeping my blood sugars high enough (rather than low enough) and all anyone would tell me was not to alter it, because it was dangerous and le babe might get too big. At my follow-up ultrasounds, le babe plummeted down the growth curve–from 50%, to 25%, to 10%. He was born at 37 weeks at the 5th percentile growth-wise (5lbs, 13oz), luckily with fully mature lungs. And then embarked on a nursing campaign that had him skyrocketing back up the growth curve–by his estimated due date, he was 7.5lbs; at 2 months, he’d more than doubled his birth weight, and at 4 months, was coming up on tripling his birth weight.

Throwing a heroin addicted baby’s mother in jail is going to accomplish what, exactly? It’s not going to make the baby any less addicted. The damage has already been done. And if you can prosecute this woman, why can’t you prosecute a genetic carrier of any number of diseases, or someone who knows she has little chance of having a baby who’ll survive for more than a week or two, but keeps trying?