NAPW Quoted in Gaurdian (London) Article

The Guardian (London)
September 4, 2006 Monday
Women: The pregnancy police are watching you
By Diane Taylor

Women: The pregnancy police are watching you: In the US, women of
child-bearing age are being advised to consider themselves 'pre-pregnant' at all
times, by giving up smoking, drinking and drugs. What are the implications of
treating people as glorified incubators, asks Diane Taylor

When Regina McKnight, of South Carolina, went to her local hospital to give
birth in May 1999, she prayed that the baby would be healthy. She had good
reason to worry. Since her mother had been killed by a hit-and-run driver the
previous year McKnight had begun smoking crack. She was naturally devastated
when the baby was stillborn - and shocked, five months later, to be charged with
homicide. Prosecutors argued that smoking crack had caused the stillbirth and
that McKnight should therefore be classed as a murderer.

Despite medically disputed evidence about the role cocaine had played in the
tragedy, McKnight went on to become the first woman in US history to be
convicted of foetal homicide by child abuse. An appeal to the US Supreme Court
failed and she is serving a 12-year jail term.

In the US, more than 20 states now define drug use by an expectant mother as
child abuse, neglect or even torture, while The Unborn Victims of Violence Act,
passed by Congress in 2004, argues that foetuses are separate persons under the
law, with rights independent of the pregnant woman. Any aspect of a pregnant
woman's behaviour that might risk foetal health - except of course abortion - is
therefore open to punishment in the courts. And last May, legislators in
Arkansas proposed making it, not just a matter of social and moral oppobrium,
but an offence worthy of prosecution for a pregnant woman to smoke a single
cigarette.

New federal guidelines issued this year ask any woman capable of conceiving
to treat themselves - and to be treated by their health-care provider - as
"pre-pregnant" at all times. Women between their first menstrual period and the
menopause are told to take folic acid supplements, stop smoking, stop drinking
regularly, maintain a healthy weight and keep chronic conditions such as asthma
and diabetes under control; not primarily for their own health but to protect
any baby that they may or may not be planning to have. They're also advised to
steer clear of lead-based paint and cat faeces - a problem for any "pre-pregnant
" folk whose household chores include cleaning the litter tray. There is no
mention of "pre- fertilisers", ie, fathers, taking similar steps to ensure their
sperm are healthy, despite studies that suggest male alcoholism can cause birth
defects in children.

The rationale for the guidelines is that half of all pregnancies are
unplanned and that the US has a higher infant mortality rate than most other
industrialised nations. At the moment there is no talk of criminal sanctions
against women who fail to comply with the pre-pregnancy guidance but it's
another worrying sign that US women are expected to treat themselves as
incubators first, individuals second. And the onward march of foetal harm
legislation suggests that it's not entirely Orwellian to suspect that women
might, in future, be criminalised for any indulgent behaviour before a pregnancy
- as well as during - that ends up harming their child.

Lynn Paltrow, executive director of the New York-based group, National
Advocates for Pregnant Women, believes that hatred of women is at the root of
the trend. "It's linked to 30 years of vicious anti-abortion rhetoric that
describes women who terminate pregnancies as murderers," she says. "You can't
have that level of hateful rhetoric and just limit it to abortion. Once pregnant
women are seen as capable of heinous crimes like murder, they are dehumanised."

Of course, it's obviously far better for a developing foetus if an expectant
mother gives up drinking, smoking and taking drugs. But while it seems no
expense is spared to prosecute and jail women addicts, far too little is spent
on getting them appropriate treatment. And the women involved in these cases are
almost always those most in need of support - there have been no stories of
children dragged from rich Manhattan mothers who choose to snort a few lines of
coke before breakfast. Those targeted are disproportionately black and poor. And
all the sound and fury about the highly prized foetus evaporates once it is no
longer in utero: children of drug-addicted mothers are often dumped in foster
placements, where study after study has shown they have little chance of
thriving.

This attitude to pregnant women shows signs of crossing the Atlantic. The
behaviour of expectant mothers has never been more closely scrutinised or
criticised, with both Kate Garraway and Kerry Katona having been attacked by the
tabloids in recent months after being pictured with a cigarette plus baby bump.
And some sources have proposed measures that aim to ensure that transgressive
women can't conceive. In a recent paper, Professor Neil McKeganey of Glasgow
University, a specialist in the social effects of drug misuse, suggested that
"paying female drug users to use long-term contraception is one . . . incentive
that we may need to consider if we fail to reduce the level of unwanted
pregnancies by drug users by other means". In a separate development, Labour MSP
Duncan McNeil has proposed adding oral contraceptive to prescription methadone.

Dr Mary Hepburn, who runs the Glasgow Women's Reproductive Health Service
supports women with social problems during pregnancy and after birth. What she
finds most disturbing is the blanket condemnation applied to drug-using mothers.

"The gap between the rich and the poor is growing," she says, "and so is the
gap between the poor and the very poor. A lot of the problems the women I work
with experience are caused by poverty rather than by drugs in isolation. A
punitive approach towards them will drive them underground, which won't be good
for them or their babies."

When it comes to drug- or alcohol-addicted expectant mothers, obviously the
ideal way forward is for them to seek treatment. Even for the richest people,
addiction is supremely difficult to tackle, but for those from the lowest
socio-economic groups the depredations that have led to them becoming drug-users
generally make it extremely hard for them to give up. In the current US climate,
though, the punitive approach towards pregnant women - in which women have been
dragged to prison cells, hours after giving birth to a healthy baby, still
haemorrhaging but having tested positive for drugs - means that few are likely
to seek treatment. Who would take that risk if it meant the possibility of
prosecution, a jail term and your child being removed from your care?

As Paltrow says: "The US has a phenomenal disregard for the wellbeing of
families. Almost every problem is seen as one of personal responsibility rather
than social or community responsibility." And the punitive approach to pregnant
mothers emphasises this, legislating against women who might otherwise seek help
for their personal problems.

In the last couple of decades laws targeting some of the US's most vulnerable
women have crept inexorably, state by state, across the country, and now the
institution of pre-pregnancy guidelines brings the spectre of women facing even
wider punishment. In the UK we need to be vigilant to ensure that, in similar
situations, pregnant women receive support - rather than a prison sentence

LOAD-DATE: September 4, 2006

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

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