How do you care for a pregnant woman with a history of drug use? Well, according to Wisconsin, you throw her in jail and administer no prenatal care. You deny all her requests to keep scheduled prenatal visits. When she experiences stress-induced cramping, you require her to visit a doctor who is not an OB-GYN. When she refuses to take a pregnancy test, you toss her in solitary confinement and threaten her with a taser. When she fears she will miscarry, you tell her “there [is] nothing [you can] do about it anyway.”
As ruthless as it sounds, this is exact treatment Tamara Loerstcher, a pregnant woman in Wisconsin, endured after doing the right thing and admitting prior drug use to her doctor, even though she had already stopped using drugs when she suspected she could be pregnant.
While drug use during pregnancy is a serious public health concern, it should not be handled as a criminal matter. Nonetheless, Wisconsin’s fetal protection law, also known as the “cocaine mom” law, gives the state power to detain any pregnant woman who is using drugs. Although Tamara was not using drugs, she was thrown into jail for 17 days for refusing treatment.
Sadly, Tamara’s ordeal is not just bad luck. In Tennessee, for example, a pregnant woman can now spend up to 15 years in prison for pregnancy complications after she has used illegal drugs. Throughout the rest of the country, hundreds of women have been arrested on pregnancy-related charges and new arrests occur each week.
via Trending: Prosecutions of Pregnant Women Continue in Wisconsin | National Women’s Law Center.






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