Judge drops drug charge against pregnant woman

[neversickanymore]

Judge drops drug charge against pregnant woman
John S. Adams,
September 23, 2014

MISSOULA, Mont. — A Montana judge has dismissed felony child-endangerment charges brought against a woman who was 12 weeks pregnant when she allegedly took dangerous drugs.

Ravalli County prosecutors in August charged Casey Gloria Allen, 21, with putting her unborn fetus at "substantial risk of serious bodily injury or death" by ingesting opiates, benzodiazepines and tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive compound in marijuana.

District Judge Jeffrey Langton in Hamilton issued an order Monday dismissing the state's charges, writing that the case against was Allen was "insufficient to support a finding of probable cause to support a charge of criminal endangerment."

continued here http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ps-drug-charge-against-pregnant-mom/16125379/

 

[S.J.B.]

Excellent, hopefully this sets a precedent.

 

[slimvictor]

This is good.
A fetus is not a human being, and the idea of punishing a woman for not taking "sufficiently good care" of a fetus inside her is bizarre.

Possible next step: if they don't exercise enough (or do too much), put 'um in jail.
But this ruling brings a bit of sanity to this arena.

 

[neversickanymore]

Now that we seem to have eliminated the insanity, how about we institute some sanity and create a a welcoming nonjudgmental place that women who find themselves in this position can turn to and get the help and support they need.

 

[Mysterie]

tbh i think a fetus does have value, its just a human at its earliest point of growth.

i dont think she should have gone to jail, but its worth getting some support if a pregnant women is taking opiates and benzos.

 

[S.J.B.]

Whether a foetus should legally be considered a human or not and be given rights and protections is one question, but all that aside, these prosecutions are going forward with no real evidence that the mothers' drug use is actually hurting their unborn children.

 

[...]

Are the drugs in any of those drug classes teratogenic?

Also, she can legally kill the fetus, but she can't expose it to psychoactive substances?

 

[slimvictor]

tbh i think a fetus does have value, its just a human at its earliest point of growth.

i dont think she should have gone to jail, but its worth getting some support if a pregnant women is taking opiates and benzos.

I agree with you. A fetus is extremely valuable, but it is not a human being (yet).
And a pregnant woman taking such drugs definitely needs help.

Also, she can legally kill the fetus, but she can't expose it to psychoactive substances?

This is emblematic of the whole distorted legal status of a fetus, and also of the insanity of the war on drugs.

 

[!_MDMA_!]

Lol this is stupid. Ya ok the fetus isn't human. But it will be... So it's okay to fuck up the chemistry of the fetus, have the fucked up fetus grow into a human, and have a human in society who was fucked up at a vulnerable time in development? Throw in the neglectful raising of a mom who is desperate and stupid enough to take drugs while pregnant, and that is how a serial killer is made

I don't even think im exaggerrating
Maybe she cleans up her act and raises him/her excellently, i think the odds are this kid is still gonna have dyslexia, or add, or autism etc and be fighting to catch up esp at a young age

ya'll crazy, i feel like the pro-drug attitude here goes too far too often

 

[S.J.B.]

Maybe she cleans up her act and raises him/her excellently, i think the odds are this kid is still gonna have dyslexia, or add, or autism etc and be fighting to catch up esp at a young age

You have absolutely nothing to back up a claim like that.

 

[!_MDMA_!]

Lol believe what u want man

Guess uve never heard of crack babies or fetal alcohol syndrome

Guess its too hard for u to google fetal drug exposure

Did you do even any research before you posted?

 

[S.J.B.]

Lol believe what u want man

Guess uve never heard of crack babies or fetal alcohol syndrome

Guess its too hard for u to google fetal drug exposure

Did you do even any research before you posted?

You are the one making a wild claim, if I were making a claim like that I would back it up with evidence.

Fetal alcohol syndrome is a well-established condition and there is no doubt that excessive alcohol use during pregnancy can lead to harm. However, alcohol was not one of the drugs mentioned in this story.

"Crack babies" are predominantly an invention of the media, as we have found out recently.

 

[shikidala]

Alcohol is currently the most harmful known illegal or legal recreational drug to the human fetus, some experts now think the crack baby epidemic may have actually been caused by Alcohol use. Glad there are people like you about on here !_MDMA_!

 

[slimvictor]

^ Well, hold on, MDMA does have a point. It is important for a mother to take care of her fetus (and her child).

Pregnant women should try to take no drugs, to the greatest extent possible.
Alcohol may be the absolute worst, but taking benzos or even weed is probably a bad idea.

But if they relapse on an addiction, or don't know that they are pregnant and take drugs, or they just can't stop, they should not be prosecuted for hurting the fetus.
Instead, they need help. It is a very different attitude, but instead of punishing them, if we help them, we can all get what we want.
Give them psychological and social support, and even economic support, so that they don't need to take drugs.

Think about how this solves the problem:
MDMA (and the rest of us) will be satisfied that the baby will grow up as healthy as possible.
I will be satisfied that nobody has to be punished for taking drugs, and that the fetus is not being used in order to get leverage in the abortion debate.
A win-win.

 

[shikidala]

I wasn't being sarcastic slimvictor, I was stating I'm happy there are people like !_MDMA_! who have some sense & real knowledge on these issues on bluelight.

I also don't agree with the prosecution of women in these cases, for one it's going to lead to more cases where help can be offered very early on being squandered not just for the woman pregnant & her soon to be child - in terms of addressing psychological/ social problems to do with the drug use, but also later on when the child - eventual adult goes undiagnosed with a Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder or birth defect caused by other drug use because the drug use was hidden due to fear of prosecution.

There are many cases where mothers use drugs before they realize they are pregnant, add in the fear from prosecution, I know fear alone has a negative impact on a growing fetus & of course the developing child, it's just not a good idea to punish people for this. I am glad this issue is leading to more awareness though, it's 9 months if you choose to bring someone into this life also choose to abstain from drugs for those 9 months, especially be weary of Alcohol.

 

[slimvictor]

^I completely agree with you, shikidala. I was actually referring to SJB.
Your addition above helped remind us that alcohol is a NASTY drug, and that most illegal drugs are probably safer for pregnant women to take.
Thank you!

I appreciate both !_MDMA_!'s and SJB's contributiuons here, and they started going somewhere with their discussion...
So I was referring to that.
But it may be lost in history at this point...


Peace.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Just to say, this topic deeply interests me and I'm kinda involved in it myself, so I am so fucking pleased to see how well this thread is going. No bitchfest or insensible bullshit or flaming such a topic the asshole is often drawn to. I hope this holds. As to precedent, I'm not sure how much significance it will have, but you know I already very pleased to hear about this ruling. Certainly to know that these laws won't end up blindly ruining the lives of countless people, as they're kinda written and geared towards do de jure and de facto, is better than just knowing how fucked up they are...

I saw the most beautiful baby boy that a patient at the methadone clinic I've been working at gave birth to recently. She'd been at the clinic for at least six months while I'd been there, then I noticed she kinda disappeared, later learning from the director that she was in the hospital giving birth. Went well, although they spend a little while in the hospital together (not a horrible thing, I mean four days didn't exactly unusual and there weren't any complications).

While I certainly didn't examine the thing, aside from the normal omg what a wonderful little kid you have there and a little cooing/singing, all of the obvious healthy baby signs were there (and we're talking like born-a-week-ago newborn kinda thing. The baby's breast feeding and weaning off methadone via that apparently. Although I know a few woman who have taken advantage of ORT to clean their shit up through their pregnancy or became pregnant and gave birth after already part of the clinic, all with health boys and girls (what, oldest now must be 13, 14? lol not much younger than me really, what's one decade right ).

Yet there is so much stigma when it comes to woman who use opioids, although I'm thinking methadone here, safely throughout their pregnancy and end up with kids who don't have any more problems than kids who were born into parents unconnected with the clinic or the scene.

My point in bringing this post up is what a fucking proud new mother she is! You can tell, and it went beyond the 'holly shit I'm a mom now' sort of presence. She knows she did what she needed to do for him while she was pregnant, got help, followed all the doctors' advice, etc. etc. and, although probably was scared and got a lot of shit along the way from certain quarters about how she was handling it, she ended up succeeding, and giving birth to a health little kid.

Among at risk populations in the scene, when it comes to destructive or irregular/illegal opioid use (which with dealers being what they are tends to be the case for most people), this is the kind of behavior we should be encouraging. That is to say, encouraging pregnant women to get the help they, their possible future children and possibly their children need.

Frankly if this kind of "encouragement" she become required of anyone, it should be the father/partner (assuming someone is involved), to be legally responsible, but even that becomes too problematic and loses sight of the bigger issue. Being:

Most people don't even have access to the services that they need access to, and perhaps that is a bigger problem than a lack of encouragement to seek such support.