Why Is California Penalizing Poor Women for Wanting to Be Parents?

[DebJ]

126. That's interesting. I never saw that revision and I've been a newshound for some years now.

But even if the woman doesn't smoke or drink, how many people with crack addiction take adequate prenatal care
of themselves? Nutrition? Sleep? Safe sex? How well does a crack addict attend to the needs of a baby?

I honestly don't know. I only know what the media has presented about crack addicts. Pretty ugly. (On edit: I've seen the impact of drug use in families, as I mention below, but which drugs were in use, I didn't often know.)

And for a year I was teaching children who lived in homes where all types of drug abuse was very prevalent. Very tragic and sad, the impact on those children, even if they were otherwise healthy (barring the fact that many only ate if there was free lunch/breakfast, no food over the holidays, skinny as rails, no winter coats, etc.)

A DEA agent spoke in our school one day and a young girl, whose father we all knew was a drug dealer, raised her hand and asked what would the DEA do to a child in a home if the parent was arrested for dealing drugs. Made me cry. Apparently another element in their world of hell is thinking some day their home would be invaded, they themselves might be arrested, and all their toys taken as well. Not that this was the worst of her fears as she had also been sexually assaulted at an incredibly young age by some piece of drug infested filth, whom I think was a relative. She's in a special school now because her anger issues make her very dangerous. I could always see underneath her though the simple little child just wanting to be a 'normal' child in a safe environment... but it was way too late for that for her. Still makes me cry. She refused to do any school work at all, though she was incredibly bright. She would curse at me and cause class disruptions all the time, but still I had to love her, for that lost little child, that tragically lost life......... because of drug using / selling parents. So very, very sad.