Salon -Tennessee has become the first state in the nation to pass a law criminalizing women for their pregnancy outcomes. Republican Gov. Bill Haslam took the 10 days allotted to him to consider the advice of doctors, addiction experts and reproductive health groups urging him to veto the punitive and dangerous measure that allows prosecutors to charge a woman with criminal assault if she uses illegal drugs during her pregnancy and her fetus or newborn is considered harmed as a result. Haslam ignored these recommendations — and the recommendations of nearly every major medical association, including the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy — and signed the measure anyway.
Opponents of the new law share a concern that a lack of access to health care and treatment facilities will result in the disproportionate targeting and jailing of poor mothers and mothers of color, particularly in rural districts throughout the state.
2 comments:
Just illegal drugs?
Pregnant women should also avoid alcohol (and in some States, Pot).
-DaTheorist
Note: If these women can afford the cost of Any kind of drugs, they can't be Socially or Economically marginalized to the point where they can't visit a Dr.
Unless they're brain-dead. Then they actually Should be committed and the baby put up for adoption.
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