In a new twist in the national debate on the rights of pregnant women, a Rockford mother has been charged with involuntary manslaughter after her daughter was born with cocaine in her system and then died.
The action by Winnebago County State`s Atty. Paul Logli is believed to be the first in the country in which a mother has been charged with manslaughter because of drug use during her pregnancy.
But it is only the latest and most serious development in a growing national movement against abuse of the unborn, a movement that is raising the same questions about a woman`s right to her body that have been argued for decades regarding the issue of abortion.
The Rockford case involves the death of Bianca Green. Bianca was born Feb. 2 but died two days later. An autopsy determined that drug use by her mother, Melanie, 24, while Bianca was in the womb reduced the baby`s oxygen supply, leading to brain damage after her birth. Cocaine was found in Bianca`s urine.
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On Monday, the baby`s mother was arrested and charged with involuntary manslaughter and delivery of a controlled substance, a charge normally used against drug pushers. She was free Tuesday on $3,500 bail.
”This is an effort to protect the people least able to protect themselves,” Logli said. ”My actions, I believe, reflect a growing concern from this community over the growing number of children born addicted to drugs.”
But his action has raised serious health and legal questions.
Some health and child abuse experts argued Tuesday that drug use during pregnancy is a health issue, not a legal one. And they contended that the imposition of stiff criminal penalties against mothers will exacerbate the problem rather than solve it.
”If our goal is to protect children, this is going in the opposite direction,” said Dr. Ira J. Chasnoff, president of the National Association of Perinatal Addiction Research and Education, Chicago. ”This is going to drive women away from health care. If a woman`s using drugs and gets pregnant, she won`t go for health care because she`ll be afraid she`ll be punished.”
Women`s rights activists asserted Tuesday that such criminal actions represent a violation of the mother`s basic right to privacy and control over her own body.
”It`s the state`s attempt to restrict and regulate a woman`s body once she`s pregnant,” said Diana Traub of the Reproductive Freedom Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, New York.
Robyn Blumner, executive director of the ACLU in Florida, said: ”When the state gets involved in the details of a woman`s pregnancy, they are intruding into a private domain.
”The consequences of giving the state the right to dictate the terms and conditions of a pregnancy-with the threat of a criminal charge if those terms aren`t followed-are daunting.”
Nonetheless, a growing number of states are considering proposals to control the way women take care of themselves-and their fetuses-during pregnancy.
Minnesota officials, for example, are studying a plan for the drug-testing of pregnant women, while, in Illinois, the Department of Children and Family Services is seeking a law to permit the state to take immediate custody of children born with drugs in their blood or urine.
Meanwhile, from California to Florida, a growing number of women who have given birth to drug-addicted or drug-affected babies have been brought before judges over the last two years on charges ranging from child abuse to delivery of a controlled substance to a minor.
Patricia Toth, director of the National Center for the Prosecution of Child Abuse, Lexington, Va., a clearinghouse for prosecutors across the nation, said the involuntary manslaughter charge against Melanie Green appears to be the most serious one levied so far in the still growing campaign to use the courts to cut drug abuse by pregnant women.
That campaign, she said, has been fueled by a sense of frustration at the sharply increasing number of babies being born with drug addictions and drug problems.
”There`s a real concern,” she said, ”about what can we do to stop this.”
In Illinois, state officials said that during a recent eight-month period 1,626 babies were born suffering from drug addiction or other effects due to maternal drug use. This was nearly 400 more babies than were reported with such problems during the previous 12 months.
Of that eight-month total, 1,421 were recorded in Cook County, nearly double the county`s total for the previous year.
Medical experts say such babies have higher risks of strokes, heart disease and sudden infant death syndrome.
”They are very irritable, and their nervous systems are impaired,” said Jo Warfield, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. ”The things one normally does to quiet a baby won`t work with a cocaine baby. That means they`re very susceptible to abuse. Then, if you add to that an existing drug problem of the mother, these become very high-risk babies for abuse.”
A study by Chasnoff found that 10 percent of the babies born at 36 hospitals had illegal drugs in their systems. He said the figure was as high as 16 percent at some Chicago-area hospitals while, according to a national study, it was as high as 25 percent at some hospitals.
Toth said, ”I don`t know any prosecutor who wouldn`t prefer to have a drug-addicted woman go to seek treatment rather than prosecute her after the pregnancy and the child is dead.”
But Deborah Daro, research director for the National Committee for Prevention of Child Abuse, Chicago, said: ”Our own position is that increasing the criminal penalty may make us feel better and make us feel like we`re doing something, but we think it won`t have any real effect. You need to address the reasons they`re using drugs.”
In Florida, the local ACLU office is planning to help defend Jennifer Clarise Johnson, one of two women who have been charged with child abuse and delivery of a controlled substance because their babies were born with cocaine in their systems.
”Whatever good is it going to do to put Jennifer Johnson in prison for 7 years?” asked Blumner, the executive director of the office. ”This woman needs help. This woman needs a treatment program.”
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Such prosecutions, she argued, ”are going to develop a whole new category of criminal: mothers.” They are, she said, a potential ”disaster to a woman`s right to privacy.”
But, in Rockford, Logli said the Green case ”is not a right-to-life case or a fetal rights case. Hopefully, things like this case can bring about a greater social effort to provide prenatal care.
”Right now, the best way for an adult without resources to get drug treatment is to be charged with a crime. It shouldn`t be that way.”