Killing the Black Body by Dorothy Roberts

Author:Dorothy Roberts [Roberts, Dorothy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8041-5259-4
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2014-02-19T05:00:00+00:00

THE REAL HARM TO UNBORN CHILDREN

Finally, and perhaps most important, overwhelming evidence shows that prosecuting addicted mothers will not achieve the government’s asserted goal of healthier pregnancies. Indeed, the prosecutions will have just the opposite effect. Pregnant addicts who seek help from public hospitals and clinics are the ones most often reported to government authorities. The threat of criminal sanctions based on this reporting has already driven some pregnant drug users away from treatment and prenatal care.

Every leading medical and public health organization in the country has come out in opposition to the prosecutions because of these concerns. In 1990, the American Medical Association issued a detailed report on legal interventions during pregnancy stating its concern that “a physician’s knowledge of substance abuse … could result in a jail sentence rather than proper medical treatment.”134 According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, “Punitive measures taken toward pregnant women, such as criminal prosecution and incarceration, have no proven benefits for infant health.”135 The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the March of Dimes, and the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, among others, have also issued policy statements denouncing the criminalization of maternal drug use.

Despite these official pronouncements, many public hospitals routinely divulge confidential patient information to prosecutors and child welfare agencies. Jennifer Johnson’s trial offers a chilling display of what happens when doctors become law enforcement agents. Patients have historically shared a confidential relationship with their doctors. One of the cardinal rules of medical ethics is that physicians must be loyal to their patients; with rare exceptions, they must not act as agents for other conflicting interests. Yet Johnson’s own obstetricians provided the most damning evidence against her. Dr. Randy Tompkins testified that Johnson told him that she had used cocaine the morning she went into labor. Dr. Riaz Arifuddin, the pediatrician who attended Carl after his birth, also testified that Johnson had disclosed her crack use the night before. It was her trust in her doctors that prompted the hospital to test Johnson and her babies for drugs. Johnson’s obstetricians also provided testimony about blood traveling through the babies’ umbilical cords that built the prosecutor’s case of drug delivery.

Other people in whom Johnson confided testified against her. Sandra Gomez, a child-protection investigator with the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services, divulged what Johnson had said about her crack habit.136 Johnson’s mother was declared a hostile witness in order to elicit testimony against her daughter.

Even worse, Johnson’s trial sent the message that an addict’s very efforts to seek treatment would be used against her in a criminal case. The state’s entire proof of Johnson’s criminal intent was based on her attempts to get help. The prosecutor argued that Johnson’s concern showed that she knew that her crack use harmed the fetus. An ambulance driver testified that, a month before Jessica’s birth, Johnson had summoned an ambulance after a crack binge because she was worried about its effect on her unborn child.137 Dr. Tompkins also testified that Johnson disclosed her crack use because she was concerned about its impact on Jessica’s health.

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