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Supreme Court lifts block on Wisconsin 'cocaine mom' law during appeal

Celebrity said:
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. ...
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THE SLIPPERY SLOPE IS OBVIOUS. Abortion opponents will start insisting that every pregnant woman is abusing drugs and/or alcohol, in order to pursue their agenda of forcing more unwanted mouths-to-feed (that the abortion opponents certainly don't want to pay for!) to get born. Notice that the article is about a woman who was merely **suspected** of being a substance-abuser....
 
I might point out that if the doctors get involved in the case, then the situation might become something like this: "The woman has been damaging her unborn offspring with nasty substances since conception. Mandatory abortion would be a far better outcome than forcing it to get born, only to suffer its defects for a lifetime." In the future, a new Choice could become common: either stop abusing substances, or abort. (This message was supposed to be an edit to my previous message, but I clicked the wrong spot. Shame on me!)
 
calamity said:
Would you be OK with offerring drug testing to the GOP as a deal maker to retain ACA? They might bite.
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I would rather not go down that road. Probably every one of them is high on cocaine, or methamphetamine, or has a history of some kind of illicit drug use. The irony of the feeble provision for the rampant opioid abuse affecting several states is... comical, horrific, and inadequate in its utility. The whole bill is a bit terrifying for women, apparently. Can't blame them for not wanting to lose what they already have.

Chomsky said:
Well intentioned or not (in Republican Wisconsin I suspect not), it's a terrible law.

Even worse due to "suspicion" being all that's required. So in essence, the law claims one can be detained upon suspicion? This would seem to go against due process, but then so much with the War on Drugs seems to.

Freedom is a precarious thing, and when we chose to be a free people there are costs that we may have to pay. Some of those costs can be terrible, and no one's ever happy to pay. But that is the cost of freedom.
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It should be noted that the only thing required to cause putative fatherhood is the suspicion that he is the father - and that can result in court fines. Scrabaholic mentioned that men can be jailed for that. I don't suppose you can comment on the reproductive side of things? The War on Drugs is visibly bloody, and many men don't really equate that with abortion or reproduction. Still, there's something to be said for the plight of sexually active men and women.

FutureIncoming said:
something like this: "The woman has been damaging her unborn offspring with nasty substances since conception. Mandatory abortion would be a far better outcome than forcing it to get born, only to suffer its defects for a lifetime."
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Mandatory abortion would also resolve any potential future responsibility of the doctor to the children which could be born from her patients. That hypothetical responsibility is now the father's. Medical doctors do not seem to have the ability to abort at will, and if they did, I do not think paternal interests would be of any consequence to the medical institution.
 
Scrabaholic said:
The only debts you'd get jailed for here nowadays is unpaid fines imposed by the courts. If you fail to pay traffic fines, you lose your license. Failure to pay parking fines results in inability to renew the vehicle's plates.
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Unpaid fines can result from putative fatherhood at the suspicion of the court. Also, the effect of a DNA test is broader and more enduring than a drug test. DNA does not specify drugs, but people, individuals who will never, ever get their privacy back once that data is sold to the state for a chance to walk free.
 
Celebrity said:
Mandatory abortion would also resolve any potential future responsibility of the doctor to the children which could be born from her patients. That hypothetical responsibility is now the father's. Medical doctors do not seem to have the ability to abort at will, and if they did, I do not think paternal interests would be of any consequence to the medical institution.
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I WAS DESCRIBING A POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION. I didn't think I was implying that if a doctor recommends something, everyone else would agree with it.

ALSO, there is a matter of "human suffering". One of the most hypocritical things about abortion opponents is that they claim to be helping "human life" --yet when those lives are genetically defective, or badly damaged by exposure to awful chemicals (remember thalidomide?), any insistence that such bodies get born is more like a desire to torture human lives, than to help them. When we add in the Objectively Verifiable Fact that personhood is made, not born, then it logically follows that there is no reason to insist that "lemon" human bodies get born. Any such insisting would be like insisting that the first abortion opponent to happen to encounter a "lemon" automobile (equivalent to a human body with no mind "driving" it) MUST buy it, and MUST keep it for life.
 
FutureIncoming said:
I WAS DESCRIBING A POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION. I didn't think I was implying that if a doctor recommends something, everyone else would agree with it.
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I'm not surprised, but I don't think you're a doctor. Incidentally, what do you think the state should recommend for moms on cocaine? Cocaine use doesn't always stop after delivery.

The issue of drug use is more a matter of policy, and has less to do with the health of a fetus, so it is simpler to resolve. Should you consult with a doctor of anthropology or political science in that case?
 
Celebrity said:
Incidentally, what do you think the state should recommend for moms on cocaine?
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DEPENDS ON IF THE STATE PAYS ANY ATTENTION TO RELEVANT DATA. If a State wants healthy taxpayers, then insisting that defective unborn bodies get born is not the way to obtain them!

Celebrity said:
Cocaine use doesn't always stop after delivery.
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IT SHOULD STOP BEFORE PREGNANCY BEGINS. If a woman wants a healthy baby, that is.

Celebrity said:
The issue of drug use is more a matter of policy, and has less to do with the health of a fetus,
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MOST LIKELY DEPENDS ON THE DRUG. Some are much more devastating to the unborn than others, after all!

Celebrity said:
so it is simpler to resolve. Should you consult with a doctor of anthropology or political science in that case?
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ONE SHOULD CONSULT APPROPRIATE OBJECTIVELY VERIFIABLE FACTS. What else?
 
Not sure at all how the nitty gritty details of this work. But in theory, if the drug-abuser pregnant woman is detained, then she no longer has access to drugs. So it seems effective for giving the unborn a greater chance at a healthy birth.
 
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