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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – Authorities in northern Alabama have denied a 29-year-old pregnant inmate in the local jail — accused of exposing her fetus to drugs — the right to have an abortion. In doing so, they have pushed the abortion wars into uncharted territory and highlighted just how central the issue of drug use in pregnancy has become to the battle over Roe v. Wade, ProPublica’s Nina Martin writes.
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Highlights from her report:
- After the woman, identified only as Jane Doe, told jail officials she wanted an abortion, the district attorney took the unprecedented step of petitioning a juvenile court to strip her of parental rights to her unborn child.
- The right of inmates to obtain an abortion has been litigated frequently over the years, and courts have consistently said that incarceration doesn’t cancel out that right. Women’s rights advocates say they can’t recall a similar effort by local authorities to deprive an adult, mentally competent woman of her parental rights while forcing her to continue a pregnancy.
- At the center of it all is Alabama’s “chemical endangerment of a child” statute, which makes it a felony to “knowingly, recklessly, or intentionally” expose a child to “a controlled substance, chemical substance, or drug paraphernalia.” The law carries exceptionally stiff penalties: one to 10 years in prison if a child suffers no ill effects, 10 to 20 years if a child is harmed, and 10 to 99 years if a child dies.
More in the full story here: http://www.propublica.org/
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