Tennessee just became the first state that will jail women for their pregnancy outcomes

[aGameOfThrones]

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.

Republican state Sen. Mike Bell, one of the seven Republicans in the state Senate to vote against the measure (every Democrat in the state Senate voted in favor), recently told Salon that this lack of access is a problem he thinks will hurt the women of his district and their families. “I represent a rural district,” he said. “There’s no treatment facility for these women there, and it would be a substantial drive for a woman caught in one of these situations to go to an approved treatment facility. Looking at the map of the state, there are several areas where this is going to be a problem.”.

Continued
http:// www DOTsalonDOTcom/2014/04/30/tennessee_just_became_the_first_state_that_will_jail_women_for_their_pregnancy_outcomes/

 

[eduardo89]

I totally agree with this. If you give heroin to a newborn, you'll get arrested. If you give heroin to a baby 1 day before birth (by doing it yourself) you've committed no crime. It makes no sense.

 

[tod evans]

Republicans pushing for junkies to get abortions....

Wonder how well that's going to go over..

 

[Nirvikalpa]

As I said on my facebook post regarding this:

"Ah, Tennessee. Because nothing is more effective at stopping addiction than throwing the mentally ill & addicted into prison. "Opponents, including many medical organizations and doctors who treat pregnant women, worry that criminalization will scare women away from treatment ..." Don't worry doctors and medical/mental health professionals - don't you know the government knows best? Especially ones who will never be pregnant once in their lives? All those years of medical school, patient interaction, professional experience... I mean really, a guy behind a desk signing off on bills who has a bachelor's degree in History can totally understand it. No big deal."

 

[Anti Federalist]

Republicans pushing for junkies to get abortions....

Wonder how well that's going to go over..

Oh, I'm sure they will be fine with it.

 

[jclay2]

This is just more food for the prison industrial complex. If harming your own child is not enough to stop your behavior, the threat of prison will certainly NOT stop you.

 

[moostraks]

So now we will have an increase in abortions and the drug addicted will have even more reason to drown themselves in their addiction due to the psychological effects of killing one's own child. And the state can make even further inroads with defining what makes for a fit parent, start by culling the undesirables for behavior most find contemptible and then just keep widening the net.

 

[Anti Federalist]

So now we will have an increase in abortions and the drug addicted will have even more reason to drown themselves in their addiction due to the psychological effects of killing one's own child. And the state can make even further inroads with defining what makes for a fit parent, start by culling the undesirables for behavior most find contemptible and then just keep widening the net.

They'll just start sterilizing the undesirables:



We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, to prevent our being swamped with incompetence.

It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.

The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes.

Three generations of imbeciles are enough.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, writing for the 8-1 majority in Buck v Bell.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell

 

[jkr]

Republicans pushing for junkies to get abortions....

Wonder how well that's going to go over..

and THERE IT IS

F--- TENNESSEE!(mod edit)

 

[Matt Collins]

dunno that prison is the best method for handling this, but if a mother harms her kid, born or unborn, it SHOULD be a crime!

 

[eduardo89]

dunno that prison is the best method for handling this, but if a mother harms her kid, born or unborn, it SHOULD be a crime!

Totally agree.

 

[oyarde]

This is just more food for the prison industrial complex. If harming your own child is not enough to stop your behavior, the threat of prison will certainly NOT stop you.

Seems about right to me . I have no wish for children to be harmed , but you are not going to prevent it with legislation and jail.

 

[tod evans]

dunno that prison is the best method for handling this, but if a mother harms her kid, born or unborn, it SHOULD be a crime!

measure that allows prosecutors to charge a woman with criminal assault if she uses illegal drugs

The term "illegal drugs" is ambiguous and will be used at the prosecutors discression...

This is extremely bad legislation!

 

[Ender]

dunno that prison is the best method for handling this, but if a mother harms her kid, born or unborn, it SHOULD be a crime!

Bullshit.

This isn't about harming the fetus- it's about the WoD and profits.

If the gov really cared about these babies they would do away with the WoDs so that addicts could get treatment w/o going to jail.

 

[Matt Collins]

The term "illegal drugs" is ambiguous and will be used at the prosecutors discression...

This is extremely bad legislation!

What's wrong with that? If a woman is using drugs while pregnant then she is obviously harming her child.

 

[Matt Collins]

Bullshit.

This isn't about harming the fetus- it's about the WoD and profits.

If the gov really cared about these babies they would do away with the WoDs so that addicts could get treatment w/o going to jail.

How do you know that they are not getting treatment while in jail?

 

[tod evans]

What's wrong with that? If a woman is using drugs while pregnant then she is obviously harming her child.

Smoking weed?

Borrowed an "illegal" pain-pill from her mother for the back pain associated with pregnancy...

And even if she were sucking meth and heroin through a garden hose the very last person qualified to address it is a fucking politician!

Especially a prosecutor who is graded on his conviction rate..


[edit]

And what is wrong with giving a prosecuting attorney the power to draw blood or check the urine of anyone, let alone a pregnant broad?

Good grief Matt have you been sucking the suits so long you actually believe this type of behavior is right?

You would empower the CPS system as well as the "Just-Us" department by merely agreeing with those who purpose this type of ridiculously intrusive legislation...

Don't buy into the "it's for the kids" BS!

 

[Ender]

How do you know that they are not getting treatment while in jail?

LOL.

That is the most ridiculous statement I have ever heard a so-called "freedom lover" say.

We all know the WoD is unconstitutional; we all know that the jail system is a for-profit business- but HEY- let's wait until an addict has a baby and then jail her so maybe she'll get some treatment for something she should have been able to do as a free person, when it was still a victimless crime.

Good grief.

It's the .gov officials that should go to jail.

 

[Root]

How do you know that they are not getting treatment while in jail?

No one should be locked in a cage to get treatments.

 

[angelatc]

Republicans pushing for junkies to get abortions....

Wonder how well that's going to go over..

I know you aren't a liberal, so I think you must missed the fact that every Democrat in the Senate voted for it, too. It's always the bi-partisan solutions that screw freedom the worst.

Republican state Sen. Mike Bell, one of the seven Republicans in the state Senate to vote against the measure (every Democrat in the state Senate voted in favor)