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Reciprocal Obligations: Managing Policy Responses to Prenatal Substance Exposure
Author(s) -
JACOBSON PETER D.,
ZELLMAN GAIL L.,
FAIR C. CHRISTINE
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
the milbank quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.563
H-Index - 101
eISSN - 1468-0009
pISSN - 0887-378X
DOI - 10.1111/1468-0009.t01-1-00064
Subject(s) - conviction , south carolina , supreme court , criminology , political science , law , pregnancy , heroin , psychiatry , environmental health , medicine , psychology , public administration , drug , biology , genetics
Substance use during pregnancy poses substantial risks to the developing fetus and continues to generate considerable policy debate. Public policy responses to prenatal substance exposure (PSE) have varied depending in part on whether the substances in question are licit (e.g., tobacco and alcohol) or illicit (e.g., cocaine and heroin). The policy responses also have ranged from warning labels on the dangers to the developing fetus of using alcohol, to treating a pregnant woman's illicit substance use as child abuse. The most controversial case was Cornelia Whitner's criminal conviction in South Carolina for PSE after her newborn baby tested positive for cocaine metabolites. Although the conviction was upheld by the South Carolina Supreme Court, it is, to date, an isolated example ( Whitner v. State of South Carolina , 492 S.E.2d 777 [S.C. 1997], cert denied , 523 U.S. 1145 [1998], but see Ferguson v. City of Charleston , 532 U.S. 67 [2001], and Ferguson v. City of Charleston , 308 F.3d 380 [4th Cir. 2002], ruling that PSE detection policies require the woman's informed consent).