Preview

Should a Pregnanat Woman Be Punished for Exposing Her Fetus to Risk?

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1077 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Should a Pregnanat Woman Be Punished for Exposing Her Fetus to Risk?
Should a pregnant woman be punished for exposing her fetus to risk? The question about whether pregnant women are liable for subjecting their unborn children to risk has yet to be properly addressed. One state South Carolina has been on the forefront of this issue. The Supreme Court in South Carolina in 1997 in the case Whitner vs. South Carolina decided that pregnant women who exposed their viable fetuses may be persecuted under the state child abuse laws. This action was specifically targeting women who use illegal drugs during pregnancy. Since this decision, other states like Arizona and Florida are following suit. In South Carolina, the Medical University of South Carolina Hospital routinely tested the urine of pregnant women for drugs without their consent. This has been a contentious issue as opponents complain that the privacy of women is violated. The very act of randomly checking the urine of pregnant women without their consent violates the constitutional right to privacy of these women. Opponents of the decision to persecute pregnant women who exposes their fetuses to risk outlined several issues with this decision. Firstly, they believe that there is a number of ethical problems with prosecuting these women. According to them, this can have the opposite effect intended. These women because of their drugs and alcohol issues will avoid doctors out of fear of jail and both they and their babies will be in greater danger from a wide range of medical problems. Secondly, there is a problem with the prospect of these women losing the ability to trust their healthcare providers as doctors are forced to move from treatment to punishment as a solution to addiction. Thirdly, it is believed that because these women are persecuted, some addicts might seek late-term abortions rather than deliver a baby with signs of drug abuse. One question that has not been answered is whether women subjecting their children to increased risk of multiple births as a


References: Abuse Laws Cover Fetus, a High Court Rules--Tamar Lewin. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.uiowa.edu/~030116/116/articles/lewin.htm Abuse: What Legal Status Should ... (n.d.). Retrieved from http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/phil/blphil_ethbio_fetalabuse.htm Levine, C., (2010). Clashing views on Bioethical Issues. 13e. McGraw Hill Bioethics - Drug Use & Fetal Should Pregnant Women Be Punished for Exposing Fetuses to ... (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/78359/should_pregnant_women_be_punished_for.html Whitner v. South Carolina Fact Sheet. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.advocatesforpregnantwomen.org/facts/whitner.htm Prosecutors Focusing on Pregnant Women. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.jointogether.org/news/headlines/inthenews/2003/prosecutors-focusing-on-women.html

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    PHL 292 - Exam 1 Study Guide

    • 2595 Words
    • 11 Pages

    In all cases of pregnancy, regardless of the circumstances, the rights of the fetus outweigh the mother’s rights…

    • 2595 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As a reflection, the Gonzales v. Carhart case in 2007 had a significant impact on the way abortions were performed. It established the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act which prevented D&E procedures, the dilation of a woman’s cervix followed by the extraction of the unborn child. (Kennedy 2) All doctors that knowingly performed the procedure were punished through the form of jail time or their license being revoked (Kennedy 8) since this was looked upon as inhumane. Also, making abortions illegal directly violates women’s human rights according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The document states that slavery and servitude is a violation of the rights (UN General Assembly 1948), so the denial of abortions violates women’s human rights because their bodies are slaves to the government and they have to serve the government with their body, meaning continuing with an unwanted pregnancy. The document also states that everyone should feel secure and when this is not the case for the women that attempt to be an abortion; they fear for their life. Nevertheless, legalizing abortions is the best choice for the nation because it comes with benefits. Sadly, before abortions, they were many births that resulted in children being sent to orphanages since…

    • 1802 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    HSM 542 Week 3 Assignment

    • 637 Words
    • 3 Pages

    There have been many efforts to restrain women from exposing their fetuses to damaging drugs, specifically cocaine, by applying law enforcement measures. In the prominent case of Whitner vs. State of South Carolina (1997), Cornelia Whitner was charged with criminal child neglect for exposing her fetus to cocaine. She was sentenced by a South Carolina court to eight years in prison. Her viable fetus was found to be protected under the state’s child endangerment statute. South Carolina currently remains the first and only state whose law recognizes the viable fetus as a person and accordingly permits criminal prosecution of women for endangerment of a fetus.1…

    • 637 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    fertility drugs as the moral equivalent of abortion, and, if they have, why they haven’t come out against them, too. The use of these drugs frequently results in multiple births, which leads to the death of one of the infants, often after an agonizing struggle for survival. According to the rules of the pro-lifers, isn’t this murder?” — North-State Record…

    • 882 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Crj 202 Research Paper

    • 2247 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Congdon, Patricia (2011). Prenatal Prosecution: Taking A Stand For The State and Well-Being Of Its Soon To Be Citizens. Charleston Law Review. 5 CHARLR 621. Retrieved 10 March 2012, from Westlaw Campus database.…

    • 2247 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    During the fall of 1988, staff members of a public hospital located in the city of Charleston by the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) became concerned by “an apparent increase in the use of cocaine by patients who were receiving prenatal treatment.” (Samaha, 2012, p. 252) In response to the increasing number, in April of 1989, MUSC instituted a drug testing policy. Women who came into MUSC that presented suspicion of drug use were subjected to the drug screenings. If the tests were positive, it was reported to police and the women were subsequently arrested. MUSC worked in conjunction with the Solicitor for Charleston in the prosecution of mothers whose children tested positive for drugs at birth.…

    • 925 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Medical Bioethical

    • 328 Words
    • 2 Pages

    I was very shocked to read this newspaper article about this poor woman and everything she went thru for the state of medical and media views of her baby. This is a good view on medical ethics. I hope it doesn’t happen to another woman. We have the right to do what we will with our bodies and the state or hospital can’t force us to anything. I hope I covered everything in my paper. My paper is a bioethical and legal I believe. Thank…

    • 328 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Secondly, according to Daniel R. Mishell, Jr., MD – Chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Southern California –, women were employing “coat hangers or knitting needles or radiator flush to induce abortions”, before professionally-performed abortions were legalized in 1976 (Morrison, par. 7). Indeed, while 39 maternal deaths from illegal abortions were reported in the United States through 1972, abortion-related deaths declined to two by 1976. However, according to The World Health Organization, unsafe “abortions induce nearly 68,000 women deaths worldwide each year”, mainly in emergent countries, since professional services are practically inaccessible and abortions are socially not accepted due to misconceptions…

    • 334 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Sterilization is the surgical process after which a person can no longer reproduce. The process in permanent and irreversible. It is a choice for people but laws are considering to enforce it on the unfortunate group of drug-addicted mothers. The drug-addicted mothers are wholly held responsible for the Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS), a group of problems that a new born has to face because the mother was dependant on illegal or prescribed drugs. The baby becomes addicted with the mother, and is still dependent on drug at the time of birth. With an increase in the number of babies born addicted to drugs, the lawmakers considered forced sterilization upon drug-addicted mothers as the most effective solution to eradicate this issue forever. However, such a prospect is appalling as it violates human rights, contradicts established laws, legalizes the practice of eugenics, and is a very risky process.…

    • 2473 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    “Medical conditions can arise during pregnancy that may pose a danger to the mother's life. Some of these conditions may result from the pregnancy itself, while others may be medical problems that require immediate treatment that cannot be done while pregnant. For example, if aggressive cancer is discovered during pregnancy, it may be necessary to treat the cancer immediately, posing a danger to the fetus. Some women may opt for abortion in order to receive treatment that could save the woman's life. Continuing the pregnancy in some…

    • 1641 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Abortion in the 1930s.

    • 306 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The letter to the editor, ‘Abortion Problem' values quality of life over quantity. The author argues that, to have a healthy race, the physical and mental wellbeing of mother and child should be considered. She recalls a personal experience which could have been avoided were abortions legal, arguing that each case is different. As acknowledged in the McMillan Report, the legalisation of abortions would reduce the number of accidents. This letter argues that the risk this may be abused is a risk which may have to be taken.…

    • 306 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    After about nine months of seasickness and cravings, women have the power to bring life into this Earth. When women are not in the position to give birth during the late stage of their pregnancy, they usually have only two possible outcomes. In these cases, the decision should depend on what the family and the mother find best. The government should not intervene and choose for the mother as they most likely will not know the best option for the two. As the female population progresses and receives additional rights that will lead to equality, they are still restrained from making a choice for their own child that does not require assistance from authority on the sensitive convoluted topic. The fact that a late term abortion is required implies…

    • 727 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Even though abortions are illegal it doesn’t stop women conducting their own, with 68,000 women a year dying through unsafe abortions or suffering from long term health complications such infections and genital trauma, all of which are consequence of the current legislation. Reasons why women choose to abort this way is due to that they don’t have access to the facilities that insure safe procedures therefore are left with a no choice but to put themselves at a risk. Another consequence of the current legislation is that women are not held equally within the law, as it restricts women of the rights over their bodies, yet there are no current laws that exhibit these same unjust controls over men. This failure by the government to recognise this, has caused “gender-specific harm”, as it confines women to either two groups when antenatal, that being either pregnant or deviant. Therefore, not only causing mental and physical consequences, for women but social…

    • 850 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Fetus Punishment

    • 566 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The problem at hand is “Should a Pregnant Woman be Punished for Exposing Her Fetus to Risk? This article presented me with two different opinions. There is Jean Toal, from Majority Opinion, Cornelia Whitner, Respondent, v. State of South Carolina, Petitioner (July 15, 1997). The other opinion comes from Lynn M. Paltrow, from “Punishment and Prejudice: Judging Drug-Using Pregnant Women,” in Julia E. Hanigsberg and Sara Ruddick, eds., Mother Troubles: Rethinking Contemporary Maternal Dilemmas (Beacon Press, 1999). There has been much debate surrounding this issue. The first case is involving Cornelia Whitner who pled guilty to criminal child neglect after her baby was born addicted to crack cocaine. (Whitner v. SC) The main focus here is the definition of “Person”. South Carolina for the longest has recognized that viable fetuses fit the definition of a “person”. Therefore the courts had no difficulty in holding the mother responsible for the neglect of the child. Ms. Whitner also argued that her pleading guilty and her drug use being made known was a violation of her right to privacy. Pozgar talks about the Privacy Act of 1974 which was enacted to safeguard individual privacy from the misuse of federal records, to give individuals’ access to records concerning themselves that re maintained by federal agencies and to establish a Privacy Protection Safety Commission. (Pozgar, 2011). However, this author based on all the evidence presented doesn’t believed her rights were violated being that crack cocaine is an illegal substance that she should not have had in her possession in the first place.…

    • 566 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Pro Choice

    • 1171 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Cagan 1 Erica Cagan ENC1103.036/Prof. Bieze December 2, 2011 Word Count: 1147 Her Choice If a woman doesn’t have control over her own body, than does she have any control at all? Abortion has fostered one of the most controversial, contentious and ethical debates in the United States. People divide themselves into two groups: pro-life and pro-choice. Pro-life argues that abortion is murder, and the mother has no right to take the life of a potential child. Prochoice “ refers to the political and ethical view that a woman should have complete right over her fertility and that she should have the freedom to decide whether she wants to continue or terminate her pregnancy” (Bose). In 1973, the Supreme Court made it possible for woman to obtain a legal abortion from well-trained medical surgeons which was a giant step forward for women’s rights (Pomeroy). Undertaking an abortion is a woman’s choice and any proposal to take away this autonomy not only violates a woman’s civil rights but would also cause many more problems in regards to a woman’s health. A woman’s autonomy is the one thing no one should be able to take away from her. Abortion is an extremely private matter that the government has no right to interfere in. If the civil rights of a person entitles him or her to not have unwanted infringements by the government and the government tells a woman that she cannot have an abortion, then is this not a violation of civil rights? Without abortion, woman would be condemned into pregnancy which “forces them into submissive roles in society” (Pomeroy). Pregnancy denounces women to “second class citizenship, since in our society, mothers are second class citizens. Once a woman becomes a…

    • 1171 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays