Pregnant pot smokers can damage kids' brains

[bettyellen]

142. Actually YES. "Fetal Protection Laws" Look em up, and find out how hundreds of women....

have been jailed "to protect" their pregnancy. Confidential medical info about a *completely healthy pregnancy* is used against the woman, her fetus given a lawyer when she is denied one.


"At 14 weeks pregnant, Alicia Beltran disclosed at a prenatal checkup that she had been addicted to pills the previous year. She had managed to get clean, but wanted her doctor to know that it had been an issue in the past. A urine test later confirmed that Beltran was clean, but her doctor and a social worker insisted that she start an anti-addiction drug.

Beltran refused. Weeks later, county sheriffs came to her home, handcuffed her and brought her to court. Her doctor had accused her of endangering her fetus, and she was ordered to attend a mandatory 78-day stay at a drug treatment facility or risk going to jail.

Beltran lives in Wisconsin, one of four states, along with Minnesota, Oklahoma and South Dakota, with laws that empower authorities to confine pregnant women for substance abuse. Other states with less specific laws also criminalize pregnant women for drug use and other conduct considered a threat to the health of the fetus. The Wisconsin law is currently being challenged, with Beltran’s court-ordered confinement being used as evidence against the state

"Beltran’s experience is far from unique, it seems. Lynn M. Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, told the Times her organization has documented hundreds of cases in which women like Beltran were arrested or detained in the name of “fetal rights.”"

more: http://www.salon.com/2013/10/24/in_many_states_fetal_rights_laws_are_putting_pregnant_women_in_jail/


'“Alicia had no idea she was giving information to the physician’s assistant that would ultimately be used against her in a court of law,” said Linda Vanden Heuvel of Germantown, Wis., one of Beltran’s attorneys. “She should not have to fear losing her liberty because she was pregnant and she was honest with her doctor.”

At the hearing, her lawyers say, the judge told Beltran that an attorney would not be provided for her at that time but that she could seek counsel for her next hearing in the case. And yet, a lawyer had been appointed to represent her fetus. “It’s wrong that an unborn child gets an attorney but Alicia Beltran, the mother of that unborn child did not,” said Vanden Heuvel."'

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/24/21117142-shackled-and-pregnant-wis-case-challenges-fetal-protection-law?lite


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