Imprisoning pregnant drug users will be costly, ineffective
Jane Crosby
March 14, 2006
Idaho Statesman
The Idaho Senate has taken the radical step of passing a bill to imprison pregnant women. Under this measure, women who become pregnant and are unable to overcome their drug problems instantly would become felons subject to five years' imprisonment.
Under the guise of protecting children, this bill, if passed, would in fact undermine both maternal and fetal health. Moreover, it is likely to create an incentive for women to have abortions rather than face jail time for continuing pregnancy to term in spite of a drug problem.
As every leading medical organization to address this issue has concluded, including the American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American College of Nurse Midwives, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the March of Dimes, the problem of alcohol and drug use during pregnancy is a health issue best addressed through education and community-based treatment, not through the criminal justice system.
Drug dependency is a medical condition — not a crime. Pregnant women do not experience alcoholism and other drug dependencies because they want to harm their fetuses or because they don't care about their children.
Medical knowledge about addiction and dependency treatment demonstrates that patients do not and cannot simply stop their drug use as a result of threats of arrest or other negative consequences. In fact, threat-based approaches do not protect children. They have been shown to deter pregnant and parenting women not from using drugs but from seeking prenatal care and drug and alcohol treatment. They have also been shown to pressure some women into having abortions to avoid jail time.
According to the bill, one of its main goals is to address specifically problems associated "the birth of babies with methamphetamine, or other dangerous illegal drugs" in their systems. Research on the effects of prenatal exposure to drugs, however, does not justify this legislation. Last year more than 90 scientists and treatment providers signed an open letter confirming that treatment for methamphetamine addiction works, opposing the use of stigmatizing and medically baseless labels such as "crack babies" and "meth babies," and concluding that: "Although research on the medical and developmental effects of prenatal methamphetamine exposure is still in its early stages, our experience with almost 20 years of research on the chemically related drug, cocaine, has not identified a recognizable condition, syndrome or disorder that should be termed 'crack baby' nor found the degree of harm reported in the media and then used to justify numerous punitive legislative proposals."
Health risks to women, fetuses and children, whether from poverty, inadequate nutrition, exposure to alcohol, drugs, or other factors, can be mitigated through prenatal care, counseling, and continued medical supervision. For this to be effective, however, the patient must trust her health-care provider to safeguard her confidences and stand by her while she attempts to improve her health (even when those efforts are not always successful). Although the bill does not mandate reporting, it permits it, leaving every pregnant woman to wonder whether her health-care providers will be acting on behalf of her health or the criminal-justice system.
Sadly, this bill — while ensuring that the state will pay the high cost of jailing mothers ($20,000-plus a year) — does not provide for a single additional penny for the much-less-expensive and cost-effective treatment that can keep our families and communities together.
In the interests of maternal, fetal, and child health, the Idaho House and governor should oppose this dangerous and counterproductive legislation.
Jane Crosby is president of the board of directors of the Idaho Women's Network.
Originally posted at http://www.idahostatesman.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060314/NEWS0503/603140392/1052/NEWS05
The editorial posted here is provided by permission of its original publisher and does not necessarily reflect the views of Idaho Public Television.