life in prison for "killing" your unborn baby by doing meth?
Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2011 4:48 pm
crappy decidedly leftist article. however an interesting topic.
more than a few states have laws allowing police to charge people with additional charges for "unborn" children. Like that california guy who got charged with two counts of murder after his 7 or 8 or 9 month pregnant wife washed up dead.
Increasingly so these laws (or expanded ones) are also being applied to pregnant mothers who are doing drugs. Social services has for at least 10 years been using drug cases to take custody away from mothers... sometimes seconds after delivery... now this "chemical endagerment" law is putting them in jail for murdering their children by doing drugs.
Now this does seem like the natural progression of the thinking behind the original laws, but I'm not sure what to think about them yet. On one hand, there are irresponsible women who get pregnant and do not act responsibly towards their pregnancy. If we just think about the moms out there doing meth, drinking alcohol etc etc etc... these are certainly actions that should be considered abuse in extreme situations.
A lot is said of women's choice... and their "responsibility" for choices over their own body. Some liberal groups even push the view point that women have always taken care of the children and therefore are uniquely positioned to make birth control/abortion choices.
If we accept this position of their responsibility in making the "choice" of an abortion, then it stands to reason that they accept the responsibility for the "choice" of continuing a pregnancy and then causing harm/death to that baby in utero... especially after viability. For those of you that don't know, most miscarriages happen within the first trimester (really before month 2), wikipedia puts it at 66-75%.
There was also a recent article on a mom who is being charged with murdering her baby who is suspected to have gotten a lethal dose of morphine through breast milk. Why shouldn't the mom of a baby in the 3rd trimester who is born and dies immediately afterwards because of the effect of drugs/alcohol on it in utero?
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/0 ... l-charges/
more than a few states have laws allowing police to charge people with additional charges for "unborn" children. Like that california guy who got charged with two counts of murder after his 7 or 8 or 9 month pregnant wife washed up dead.
Increasingly so these laws (or expanded ones) are also being applied to pregnant mothers who are doing drugs. Social services has for at least 10 years been using drug cases to take custody away from mothers... sometimes seconds after delivery... now this "chemical endagerment" law is putting them in jail for murdering their children by doing drugs.
Now this does seem like the natural progression of the thinking behind the original laws, but I'm not sure what to think about them yet. On one hand, there are irresponsible women who get pregnant and do not act responsibly towards their pregnancy. If we just think about the moms out there doing meth, drinking alcohol etc etc etc... these are certainly actions that should be considered abuse in extreme situations.
A lot is said of women's choice... and their "responsibility" for choices over their own body. Some liberal groups even push the view point that women have always taken care of the children and therefore are uniquely positioned to make birth control/abortion choices.
If we accept this position of their responsibility in making the "choice" of an abortion, then it stands to reason that they accept the responsibility for the "choice" of continuing a pregnancy and then causing harm/death to that baby in utero... especially after viability. For those of you that don't know, most miscarriages happen within the first trimester (really before month 2), wikipedia puts it at 66-75%.
There was also a recent article on a mom who is being charged with murdering her baby who is suspected to have gotten a lethal dose of morphine through breast milk. Why shouldn't the mom of a baby in the 3rd trimester who is born and dies immediately afterwards because of the effect of drugs/alcohol on it in utero?
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/0 ... l-charges/