Woman prosecuted after taking meth leads to still birth in mississippi

[cogitosum]

Sorry if this has already been posted but couldn't see it anywhere. I know it's not in uk but I think it's a very scary prospect as could open doors to cases of women being prosecuted for smoking, drinking, eating wrong type of cheese etc in pregnancy if this ends in miscarriage

I had mmc last year and was looking for reasons to blame myself as I'm sure many women are. The idea that a court could do the same thing is horrifying.

Given some people's opinions on women smoking in pregnancy even on here this idea isn't so far fetched (incidentally I didn't smoke or drink in pregnancy and now 34 weeks but I'm sure I've broken some of the 'rules' and strongly believe that a woman's body is her own).

On phone so I'm not sure if link Will work sorry.

www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/2013/05/23/mississippi-miscarriages-supreme-court_n_3327974.html

The problem with aborting a fetus in order to continue being an addict without consequences is that access isn't as easy as it sounds.
www.guttmacher.org/pubs/sfaa/mississippi.html

www.nytimes.com/2013/04/16/us/ruling-prevents-closing-of-mississippis-only-abortion-clinic.html?_r=0

There's one abortion clinic in the state, abortion isn't not covered by insurance in a lot of cases, even if she had it in the first place, and she'd have to have jumped through a number of hoops she probably wasn't able to deal with.
So I agree with a woman's right to contraception, MAP abortion, the right to be a single parent, and the rights of a viable fetus to also have a right to life.
Which makes the entire argument incredibly complicated and very uncertain.

LuckyLuckyMe, you obviously aren't pro-choice.

You have totally contradicted yourself.

If I have contradicted myself let me make myself clear. I have no problem with someone doing harm to their own body but I do have a problem with them doing harm to someone elses body.

could you possibly clarify further please? If one body is inside another's body, do you still support the right of the host body's owner to do as she wishes with her own body?

or does she lose her rights for the duration of her pregnancy?

I think an addict/dysfunctional person has a responsibility not to bring children into this world, i.e use some contraception,

Had the baby been born it more than likely would have been severely disabled. And tbh I think that should be a crime too.

How would that work?

I mean, I would imagine that possibly paying for and using contraception isn't totally compatible with, you know, being an addict or 'dsyfunctional person'?

What is a 'dysfunctional person' anyway - I mean, what defines that?

Ok well I've had a stillbirth despite doing all the "right" things, I was just hugely unlucky. And it is hard to see someone in that situation due t their own fault or indeed angry on behalf of the baby that died. But for me it ia a bright line, you cannot view a woman as a vessel for the child whose rights trump hers regardless the circumstances. Otherwise we are on extremely slippery slope.

I'm not sure I am following this debate at all. Nobody has the "right" to stuff their body full of illegal chemicals, so I am not following how this woman suddenly has the right to simply by virtue of being pregnant, or am I missing something crucial here?

No, she doesn't have the right to (not knocking you, but I did make this point upthread).

But there is already a law against illegal drugs.

She is, instead, being prosecuted for the separate issue of what the drugs probably caused to happen to her baby.

I agree. It's a dangerous precedent. Obviously it's dreadful, and a tragedy, but she was addicted to the drug.

Yeah, I don't think anyone else is particularly thrilled with the idea either, though.

The issue is, where do you draw that line? And where do you find the money to remind drug users users about contraception and support them 'heavily'?

Btw, this would presumably be easier with someone who was using methodone, which is sometimes prescribed.

The woman in the OP's link was using crystal meth, which is different.

(I mean, because as I understand it, someone prescribed methodone will be checking in with medics and at least vaguely trying to stay on the programe?)

To be honest I don't see the sinister precedent here. Anyone has the right to fill themselves up on booze, but get behind the wheel of a car and kill or cripple someone and people don't suddenly see drink driving as being against the law as a slippery slope to stop people's right to drink, and this isn't taking into account that the drug in question here is a highly illegal one.

All that said the pregnancy aside crimilizing addicts is rarely of any use. They are often victims of some horrendous thing or another. The saddening thing for me is either side of the abortion debate co-opting this situation to push an agenda. The more relevant thing to do in law is to slap additional charges on individuals who supply illegal narcotics to a pregnant mother, charges so significant people will think twice about doing it, it baffles me nobody else has come up with this.

This, from the Huffpost story, is chilling: "Virginia's Republican candidate for attorney general, state Sen. Mark Obenshain, introduced a bill in 2009 that would require women to report their miscarriages to the police."

Yeah, because conniving untrustworthy women, stained by the sin of Eve, just can't wait to murder unborn babies - without the brave Senator's intervention men's precious seed would be wasted by all those evil women.

no.i don't share your alarm or belief this is draconian or leads to imposition upon pg women
you're unnecessarily linking unrelated diet and alcohol/tobacco to a prohibitive state intervention
I think you're unnecessarily het up on bunch of what ifs

She had a stillbirth at 31 weeks and named the baby. She's now being prosecuted for miscarrying. Not for using the drugs, for miscarrying. The grand jury decided that there were grounds for indicting her because she "did willfully, unlawfully, feloniously, kill Hayley Jade Buckhalter, a human being, by culpable negligence." By taking drugs.

But she's not being prosecuted for anything equivalent to drink driving, either, is she?

That's the point.

There are laws against the things you describe.

This is now adding a new idea that it's ok to punish women for doing those things and being pregnant while doing it.

I don't see how it's a 'what if', either, when several similar cases have already happened.

What next would be someone miscarrying and their on off partner saying they had been drinking heavily the weekend before. The saying goes that you can get a jury to indicte a ham sandwich. As a result of this particular indictment that woman will never have privacy again.

Or perhaps a woman who was ambivalent about being pregnant, not hard to find in a state with one abortion clinic for the time being, miscarries. Will she find herself being expected to prove he had nothing to do with it? Will she be subject to drug testing?

Well, also 'what next' is going to be a woman who already quite obviously has plenty of problems, taking up a lot of time and money being punished for the fact her baby is dead.

How many women now are going to admit 'yes, I do seem to be pregnant with a drug problem, please help me'?

A woman's right to do as she chooses with her own body must be inviolate, regardless of whether she is pregnant.

A foetus is not a person.

Prosecuting a woman for having a still born baby is monstrous.

Oh no. There's no money to actually help women who have addiction problems and find themselves pregnant. Just to prosecute them.

So to repeat an earlier point (because noone has answered it) all those who are for this (or at least not against it) would also support prosecution of overweight or obese women who have stillbirths?

And obviously older women have higher rates of miscarriage too, so should they be prosecuted?

What about gestational diabetics who fail to stick rigidly to their diet?

Women with genetic disorders who know there is a chance of passing it on and having a child with an illness/disability?

Should I be prosecuted for riding my bike in London at 35 weeks pregnant? Or for that glass of wine I had on Saturday? Or the Mr Whippy?