Have you heard of “Crack Mom?” No? Her case might be one of the most important in the country right now.
A Kentucky woman who the press has dubbed “Crack Mom” faces up to 10 years after pleading guilty to endangering her child’s life by using cocaine during pregnancy, The Kentucky State Journal reports.
But deciding her fate isn’t that simple because the Kentucky Supreme Court heard a similar case in December and a ruling is expected shortly on whether it’s possible to legally abuse a child in the womb.
It’s always amazed me that people look down their nose at women who smoke while pregnant while advocating her right to actually kill her unborn baby.
This case could possibly go all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States and could have a major impact on how the law views the unborn.
“Crack Mom’s” lawyer had this to say in news reports: “I don’t see how it’s OK to have an abortion, but it’s not OK to do something which would hurt the fetus on the part of the mother…I don’t see how one could make the argument that it’s OK to kill a person, but it’s not OK to hurt a person if you consider a fetus to be a person, which the law does not.”
Sadly, I think Crack Mom’s lawyer likely takes the wrong lesson from this logical incongruity and thinks that since the unborn are not viewed as human a mother can do whatever she darn well pleases with her unborn child rather than if it’s wrong to hurt a child in the womb than maybe…just maybe it can be viewed as wrong to kill them.
Yup. A lawyer is actually arguing that it’s OK to take cocaine while pregnant. Yeah, it’s come to that.
And I’m glad. Hoo-ray for Crack Mom’s lawyer because he’s pointed out the idiocy of the pro-choice argument. The argument for choice falls apart here. (Not that it held together especially well anywhere else.) Why can it be OK for a woman to kill her unborn child but not to endanger it?
If the Supreme Court rules that the unborn are not always at the mercy of its mothers whim, that changes everything. If a woman does not have the absolute right to damage her unborn child, there’s no legal argument that a woman always has the right to choose to terminate the baby’s life.
Assistant Attorney General James Shackelford argued before the court that taking drugs while pregnant is not a “victimless crime.” Can you imagine that we’ve traveled so far down this crazy road that we actually have to argue this.
The Maryland Supreme Court heard a similar case and overturned the convictions of two cocaine-addicted mothers. According to the judges, if pregnant cocaine addicts can be charged with child endangerment, then so could any mother, even for “exercising too much or too little.”
Yeah. Because, you know, exercising too much is soooo similar to ingesting large amounts of dangerous drugs. What? Is the baby going to be born addicted to sit-ups?
These cases could be the next most important abortion battleground. Remember how the ACLU and all sorts and manner of pro-choice groups fought laws that sought to protect unborn victims of violence. But the hook used in those cases was that the mother had chosen life while the perpetrator had violated the mother’s wishes.
This case goes further in that it stands between the wishes of a drug addict mother and her child and calls it what it is—child abuse.
Abortion apologists are nervous. In what might go down as one of the classic Slate Magazine articles of all time, the magazine attempted to show that cocaine isn’t all that bad for babies after all. I’m serious. They’re right to be nervous because they’re implicitly acknowledging what the courts have so far been unwilling to acknowledge. Abortion is the worst form of child abuse.
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“Crack Mom”? She has a name; it’s given in the news story you linked to yourself. Your choice to instead refer to her in this dehumanizing manner proves exactly how much Christian love is in your heart (hint: very precious little), and proves yet again how much Catholicism cares for women and mothers (hint: see previous hint). You’re disgusting and should be ashamed of yourself.
I chose not to use her real name as publicizing her name could only be harmful to her. As the story is about a larger issue than this one woman I simply used the nomenclature of the press.
Thank you for not giving her name and causing even more ruin to her reputation.
Jane and Matthew Murray,
Oh please. You take issue with the name “crack Mom”? Please. What a red herring. What say you to the real issue? do you know what the real issue is? It is whether this child, or any unborn child is a person who should be protected from abuse? Yes or no?
Jane, While I agree that this woman has a name, I think it is unfair of you to say that the author of the article has ‘very little Christian love’ as he is simply pointing out the ridiculousness of this case. It is a sad thing for our country that we even have to fight for the right of the unborn. Also, you claim that Catholicism has no love for women and mothers. How far you are from the truth. I am a Catholic woman expecting my first child, and everything thing that our beautiful faith teaches does nothing more than show how wonderful women are, how precious our role is in life, in the Church, and in the world. I will pray that you find the same value and worth in yourself that the Mother Church sees in you.
Comparing the morality of abortion with the morality of substance abuse while pregnant sounds valid in theory, but the reality is that pregnant women who use drugs were most likely addicted before ever becoming pregnant. Unless you don’t believe in such a thing as drug addiction, you shouldn’t treat this so lightly. I’m really against the idea that drug USE is a criminal act. It should be treated as a health problem, especially when an unborn child’s life depends on it.
Yes, it may sound ridiculous at first that people would want to put a women in prison for excercising too much while pregnant, but is that really so far off? Where would we draw the line? Would eating seafood that can contain mercury be a crime? Not getting prenatal care would amount to child negligence. With fetal personhood laws, the fact is that any perceived harm done to the child would be reported to the authorities. How could it not?
I’m pro-life, but the idea that all miscarriages and stillbirths would turn into homicide investigations makes me very uneasy.
This same argument was brought up by Barack Obama when he argued against the Born Alive Act. He said, if the will of the mother is our ultimate marker, then we must not let live the children born of an attempted abortion. If the child was unwanted then, it is still unwanted outside the womb. If it has a right to live outside the womb, then it also must have a right to live inside the womb. That was his argument and it fits, logically. The problem is, people have been pointing out these logical loopholes for years and no one seems to care!
As far as the limits to what constitutes “prenatal child abuse,” I agree that this could become very tricky, so it may become a slippery slope if this becomes an option for legal prosecution. It is definitely something to watch.
This Op-ed about the Ky. supreme court case states what should be blatantly obvious to the most casual observer regarding your “crack mom”:
“Threatening pregnant women with arrest is bad for babies. Babies have the best birth outcomes when their mothers are not afraid to come in for health care, not afraid to talk honestly to their health care providers, and when they can find the right kind of help for their problems. This explains why threatening pregnant women with arrest and prosecution is bad for babies. While using drugs, smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, and many other things can create risks, the good news is women who get health care during pregnancy, whether or not they can overcome an addiction, can have healthy babies.
Women who are afraid that getting health care will lead to arrest often stop coming in for health care, or if they go, keep their drug problems secret. This is one reason why every medical group in the country to address the issue, including the March of Dimes and the American Academy of Pediatrics, oppose prosecution of pregnant women.”
Also:
“Threatening arrests and prosecutions create an incentive for women to have abortions. Given how hard it is for most people to overcome an addiction problem quickly (even strong and successful people like Rush Limbaugh) laws that threaten to punish women who carry their pregnancies to term in spite of a drug problem puts pressure on them to get unwanted abortions.
In North Dakota, a woman was arrested on charges similar to those in Kentucky. She was twelve weeks pregnant at the time and managed to obtain an abortion. The result? The prosecutor dropped the criminal charges citing the fact that she had “terminated her pregnancy.” Indeed, if the Kentucky Supreme Court uses the current case to permit prosecution of women who “endanger” their unborn children, we might as well post signs saying: “If you are pregnant and can’t achieve abstinence immediately, have an abortion now, before you get arrested.”
It ends with:
“What the medical research says about cocaine use and pregnancy is very different from what most people have heard on the news. Scientific experts as well as leading government agencies now confirm that the use of cocaine is not uniquely or inevitably harmful. The National Institute for Drug Abuse has reported that while babies born to mothers who used cocaine while pregnant “were at one time written off by many as a lost generation… It was later found that this was a gross exaggeration.” And, as the U.S. Sentencing Commission concluded, “[t]he negative effects of prenatal cocaine exposure are significantly less severe than previously believed” and those negative effects “do not differ from the effects of prenatal exposure to other drugs, both legal and illegal.”
While health experts do not say that there are no health risks associated with cocaine use during pregnancy, the good news is that they overwhelmingly agree that the risks are comparable to cigarettes and less than the possible harm from excessive alcohol use. Exaggerated claims of harm from illegal drugs should not provide the cover for drastically changing Kentucky law, to permit treating pregnant women who do any of these things as criminals.”
link:
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/reader-diaries/2009/12/09/arresting-pregnant-women-bad-babies-kentucky-case-progresses-and-advocates-speak-out-0
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