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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – In Alabama, a positive drug test can have dire repercussions for pregnant women and new mothers. Their newborns can be taken from them. They can face lengthy sentences in the most notorious women’s prison in the country and thousands of dollars in fees and fines.
Yet the hospitals that administer those drug tests — and turn the results over to authorities — are exceedingly reluctant to disclose their policies to the public. In many cases, they test mothers and babies without explicit consent and without warning about potential consequences, ProPublica’s Nina Martin and AL.com’s Amy Yurkanin write. <script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://pixel.propublica.org/pixel.js” async=”true”></script>
Highlights from their report:
- In 2003, the federal government began requiring states to create strategies for dealing with drug-dependent babies. But the law left open the question of which babies and mothers should be tested, allowing hospitals to set their own parameters.
- Under Alabama law, drug abuse in pregnancy is considered a form of child abuse, and medical providers are “mandatory reporters,” meaning they are required to report positive test results to child welfare authorities, who then must report them to law enforcement.
- Since 2006, the law has been used to charge nearly 500 women with endangering their unborn children. In many cases, law enforcement officials cited hospital-administered drug tests as probable cause for arrest.
- At least 15 other states also treat prenatal drug use as child abuse, but only three — Alabama, South Carolina and Tennessee — explicitly allow mothers to be criminally prosecuted.
More in the full story here: http://www.propublica.org/
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