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Parental Drugs

Criminalization of Prenatal child abuse Drug/alcohol use, prenatal care

Maternal drug abuse is part of an ongoing array of familial, cultural, and social institutional process within which the child is nested and in which the growing child participates (Claussen, Scott, Mundy, & Kratz, 2004). In the case of child abuse, women have become the main targets in the legal system dealing with prenatal care. There are many factors that affect in fetuses' or children's health during and after pregnancy. With lack of support from the government women are forced to find places to get help for them and their child. As a result of these costs, many prosecutors see pregnant women as child abusers. Their justification is that making prenatal drug exposure a crime would ultimately protect the health and well-being of infants (Zivi, 2000). In the past decade prosecutors have charged more than 200 women with crimes for prenatal drug exposure (Chavkin et al. 1998 cited in Zivi, 2000). Even the welfare advocates are promoting unfounded interpretations of civil child abuse and neglect laws to permit the removal of hundreds of children from their mother, not because of evidence that the mothers will not properly care for their children, but rather because a single drug test indicates that a women used drugs once during pregnancy (Paltrow, 1991). It's tough for a mother to receive help with pregnancy because of the risk of losing
their baby. Therefore, causes mother not to receive help from drug treatment programs.
There is also poverty. The poverty of black women who are drug users brings them in closer contact with government agencies [where] there drug use is more likely to be detected (Zivi, 2000). Drug use is higher among women who have not finish school and among those who are poorer (Classen, Scott, Mundy & Kratz).
The majority of prenatal drug exposure is in the inner city. Many could come to the conclusion that black women will be the main target for prosecutors...