OohPooPahDoo
Gold Member
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/magazine/the-criminalization-of-bad-mothers.html
In short, the Alabama passed a law designed to punish parents who raise children around meth labs - the law was never intended to extend to the womb - as evidenced by the fact it doesn't say so in the law and the legislature has repeadetly rejected attempts to define a fetus as a person - yet the court has decided to intepret the law in a manner that could allow up to a LIFE SENTENCE for something so ridiculously minor as taking a hit of marijuana while pregnant - even if you don't know you're pregnant!
Why pass a law defining a fetus as a person when the judicial activists court can do it for you?
In short, the Alabama passed a law designed to punish parents who raise children around meth labs - the law was never intended to extend to the womb - as evidenced by the fact it doesn't say so in the law and the legislature has repeadetly rejected attempts to define a fetus as a person - yet the court has decided to intepret the law in a manner that could allow up to a LIFE SENTENCE for something so ridiculously minor as taking a hit of marijuana while pregnant - even if you don't know you're pregnant!
Criminal convictions of women for their newborns positive drug tests are rare in other states, lawyers familiar with these cases say. In most places, maternal drug use is considered a matter for child protective services, not for law enforcement. Advocates for Kimbrough insist that, in any case, Alabamas chemical-endangerment law was never meant to apply to pregnant womens drug use. The words womb, uterus, pregnant women dont appear in the law, Ketteringham says. It was a law meant to protect children from meth labs. One state legislator has filed an amicus brief, claiming the law was not intended to be used this way, and the Legislature has repeatedly rejected amendments to expand the laws definition of child to explicitly mean fetus.
Why pass a law defining a fetus as a person when the judicial activists court can do it for you?
Last summer, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals upheld this expanded interpretation of the chemical-endangerment law, ruling that the dictionary definition of child includes unborn child, an interpretation that will be challenged when the states Supreme Court considers Kimbroughs case in the coming months.