![]() In some jurisdictions, prosecutors are aggressively cracking down on drug or alcohol use by women while pregnant. “That is why we sought to incentivize parents to enter substance abuse treatment and recovery programs, in hopes that we can help save not only their children but their own lives as well.” “The epidemic of so many children being born straight into withdrawal from NAS is a growing plague on our society and cause for great alarm,” Meade and Jenkins wrote in an op-ed. David Meade and Joni Jenkins, the Republicans sponsors of the Kentucky measure, said that the “consequence” was intended to “encourage mothers to get help” with their addictions. Kentucky’s law, which is similar to another passed in Arizona that same year, requires the mother of a child born with NAS to enroll in drug treatment within 90 days and keep a regular schedule of postnatal care or else face termination of her parental rights. In 2018, Kentucky passed a law that amended the state’s child welfare laws to include a consideration of parental drug use during pregnancy, following reports of the skyrocketing number of children in the state born with NAS-from just 46 babies in 2001, to 1,115 babies in 2016. “There isn’t one easy fix, and when state’s look for that, they end up with punitive policies.”įor some lawmakers, taking a consequence-based approach seems like the only immediate option in the face of a crisis. “I think the question now is how we deal with the problem,” he said. Stephen Patrick, a professor of pediatrics and health policy at Vanderbilt University and an author of the report, said that their findings show that laws criminalizing drug use while pregnant or using addiction to terminate parental rights don’t work. The results suggested the women “are disengaging from the health care system in states where punitive policies regarding substance use during pregnancy have been enacted” and “missing key opportunities for interventions” due to fear of criminalization. ![]() The study also tracked NAS rates in states that enacted what the study called “punitive policies” and those that did not, finding that the odds of a child being born with the syndrome were significantly higher in states that took the harsher approaches. From 2000 to 2015, the number of states that implemented these policies rose from 12 to 25, while almost the same amount of states also began requiring health care professionals to report suspected drug abuse. Studies have found that the rate of children born with neonatal abstinence syndrome, a form of withdrawal, increased by more than 500% between 20, and opioid overdoses have become a significant contributor to maternal deaths in some states.Ī November study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association tracked the rise of laws that criminalized taking drugs while pregnant, as well as classifying drug use during pregnancy as child abuse that could result in loss of custody rights or as grounds for a civil commitment. The case touched a nerve, igniting a debate over whether mothers should be held accountable for their drug use or treated with compassion for their addictions.Ĭalifornia is one of the dozens of states with laws on the books that criminalize drug use during pregnancy, some of which have been passed in recent years in response to growing concerns about the opioid epidemic. In November, a California woman who gave birth to a stillborn baby and admitted to using methamphetamine while she was pregnant was charged with murder. As the opioid epidemic surges, states have been cracking down on pregnant addicted women.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |