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Re: New Mother Charged with Assault for using Meth during Pregnancy
That's fine and dandy but your missing the bigger picture and quickly dismissing it because it doesn't fully agree with you (debate?)
Discussing the arrest as you requested in the OP:
So, as others point out, what personal actively will be criminalized next? Where is the consent for search and seizure? Most importantly, now that she's incarcerated is she getting help? If she wants help now and not offered the help is that right. Or does your insistence of people wanting to get help only apply to people who have not gotten caught.
I've already addressed where you said this before -- if she doesn't want help, she's not going to get it. There are many places she could have gotten help in Knoxville if she wanted it, but clearly she did not want help. You cannot help an addict until they are ready to be helped.
That's fine and dandy but your missing the bigger picture and quickly dismissing it because it doesn't fully agree with you (debate?)
Discussing the arrest as you requested in the OP:
The first arrest applying a new Tennessee law that charges a woman with assault for taking illegal drugs while pregnant has sparked backlash from civil rights groups.
Mallory Loyola, 26, was arrested Tuesday, two days after giving birth to a baby girl, because she and her newborn tested positive for methamphetamine, Monroe County Sheriff Bill Bivens said.
“A woman may be prosecuted for assault for the illegal use of a narcotic drug while pregnant, if her child is born addicted to or harmed by the narcotic drug,” reads a law passed on July 1.
“Addiction is a very complex issue, and we need to make sure we are doing all that we can to care for our fellow Tennesseans,” said Tennessee Department of Mental Health Commissioner E. Douglas Varney.
But women’s rights and civil rights groups don’t think the law effectively cares for women who are addicted to drugs, and they said Loyola’s case proves their argument.
“The state’s newly expanded fetal assault law is designed to humiliate and punish, not treat or protect,” said a statement from the group, National Advocates for Pregnant Women.
In this specific case, the group said, the law doesn't even apply. The law stipulates that a new mother can be charged if she was using narcotics while pregnant, and Loyola was not, it said. Methamphetamine is a stimulant, not a narcotic, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
National Advocates for Pregnant Women said as a result of Loyola’s arrest, the group has already received calls from pregnant women “paralyzed with fear” from seeking prenatal care because they don’t want to risk getting arrested.
In a letter to Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, urging him to veto the law, The ACLU pointed out that the American Academy of Pediatrics has founded, “punitive measures taken toward pregnant women, such as criminal prosecution and incarceration, have no proven benefits for infant health.”
“By focusing on punishing women rather than promoting healthy pregnancies, the state is only deterring women struggling with alcohol or drug dependency from seeking the pre-natal care they need,” said Thomas H. Castelli, legal director of the Tennessee ACLU in response to Loyola’s arrest.
Bivens said he thinks the law will have the opposite effect, and motivate addicted mothers-to-be to seek care.
"I think people need to be accountable for their actions, especially when you have another human being about to be born into this world," Bivens said.
More than 900 infants experienced drug withdrawal in Tennessee in 2013, according to the state's Department of Health. Bivens said that number "saddens" him and he hopes the new law "is for the betterment of the child."
Loyola is being held at the Monroe County Jail on $2,000 bond. Bivens said he does not know if she's been offered treatment, or where the baby is being cared for.
First published July 14 2014, 11:03 AM
Elisha Fieldstadt
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So, as others point out, what personal actively will be criminalized next? Where is the consent for search and seizure? Most importantly, now that she's incarcerated is she getting help? If she wants help now and not offered the help is that right. Or does your insistence of people wanting to get help only apply to people who have not gotten caught.