Cognitive impairments caused when cocaine crosses fetal brain barriers and affects the developing brain = a child getting hurt.

My sister-in-law decided to have a second child with her boyfriend even though (a) he’s a drug addict with untreated severe ADHD and bipolar and (b) her older child with him has severe (treated) ADHD and bipolar symptoms, both of which he takes medication for.

By choosing to have a child with someone that she knows has these genetic deficits, she is hurting that child, especially since she knows that her son’s half-brother has the same problems and that her boyfriend’s brothers all have the same problems.

Therefore, she should have been prevented from having the second child, yes? After all, she is deliberately hurting her child because she knows her child will have ADHD and probably be bipolar as well, just like the child’s two brothers, father, and uncles.

Not to mention that the long-term effects of cocaine on a developing fetus are a bit more equivocal than in your previous links. Even the National Institute on Drug Abuse says:

Despite the documented deficits of some of the children in our longitudinal studies, most have passed one developmental milestone after another, albeit some more slowly than their unexposed peers. Researchers have had the gratifying experience of watching many of these children grow, walk, talk, interact with their families and social environments, and progress from grade to grade in school.

A child that was exposed to cocaine in the womb will have similar deficits as my sister-in-law’s children, and may well have lesser problems than they have. Does that make her a child abuser?

“For me, the underlying sadness of this case is that no one cared that she was using drugs while pregnant until she had a stillborn baby. No one intervened. No rehab program would take her because she was pregnant. Even if she had wanted to get off drugs, she had no options to safely do so.”

It’s a tragedy that she didn’t have access to rehab, through no fault of her own.

The idea of nobody caring she was using drugs is part of the overall problem of poverty. It’s not that nobody cared, but like homeless people (which McKnight was) and the poor generally, they are left behind in all ways.

I see the solution as either a general economic fix that would remedy the income gap (not holding our collective breaths, I’m sure) or a targeted program that would fund pro bono rehab centers which would welcome pregnant women as well as poor people generally.

Cognitive impairments caused when cocaine crosses fetal brain barriers and affects the developing brain = a child getting hurt.

It just means that, as a mom (not that being one is necessary for this argument), it’s hard to get excited when the underlying context is that a child gets hurt — whether sooner or later.

How is the “underlying context” that a child gets hurt when the stillbirth was almost certainly not caused by cocaine?

For me, the underlying sadness of this case is that no one cared that she was using drugs while pregnant until she had a stillborn baby. No one intervened. No rehab program would take her because she was pregnant. Even if she had wanted to get off drugs, she had no options to safely do so.

The government only cared about her fetus, and even that didn’t happen until it was born dead.

That is fucking disgusting. “Such people” are not animals; they don’t need a “humane” solution.

No, they aren’t animals, but they are highly irresponsible, mentally impaired (and often mentally ill) persons who are a danger to themselves and others. The sterilization (which could in fact be voluntary in many cases) + basic income combo may not solve all their problems, but at least it would help to contain the problem and tide them over until we have more effective means to deal with (drug) addiction and whatever other mental problems they may have. Makes sense, no?

They deserve human rights, and the right to bodily integrity is one of them.

Even if this ‘right’ increases their own suffering, spreads it to their children, and places a heavy burden on society? Sounds like blind dogmatism to me. In fact, it reminds me of the pro-lifers with their ‘let’s save babies and damn the consequences’ attitude.

You really think that the government should be able to come in and sterilize (or coerce into sterilization) women who are poor, or who are drug users, or who are otherwise “unfit” to parent?

In extreme cases, yes. It’s a logical extension of involuntary commitment, and really not fundamentally different.

Sounds a lot like eugenics to me.

The basic idea behind eugenics, better genes (and, by extension, people) through careful selective breeding and/or direct genetic manipulation, is actually not only rational, but also something of a moral imperative. Don’t we, as civilized, thinking beings, have a certain obligation towards our (potential) offspring to make them as healthy, strong, beautiful, and intelligent as possible? Isn’t it in fact barbaric to breed randomly, mindlessly, like animals?

And if you think pregnancy is a sexually transmitted disease, fine — I support 100% your right to avoid pregnancy however you see fit. But you don’t get to tell other women that our wanted pregnancies are “diseases.” The female body is maligned enough; we don’t need our natural reproductive functions demonized as well.

The whole point is that women aren’t their reproductive functions. They are individuals, ends in themselves rather than means to an end. An attack on procreation is NOT an attack on women in general. Indeed, if anything it’s an attack on the patriarchy, which tends to prefer its women meek, barefoot & pregnant.

And we certainly don’t need more people trying to control women’s bodies by telling them when they can and cannot reproduce. Lots of women have dealt with that quite enough.

This isn’t about control; it’s about self-liberation. For countless centuries women have been brainwashed and guilt tripped into believing that their primary ‘purpose’ is to bear and rear children; that it’s their (sacred) duty to risk life & limb, and sacrifice their freedom, for their family/tribe/country/whatever; that infertility is some kind of curse rather than a blessing in disguise. Well fuck all that. Fuck evolution, which placed the burden of procreation disproportionately on women, and fuck the social structures that ruthlessly took advantage of this innate weakness, and made a bad situation infinitely worse. Give them the finger and be (child)free. If they want offspring so badly, let them build artificial wombs. Surely we could have them within a decade if it becomes the new Manhattan project or Apollo program; it’s just an extension of existing technologies, after all.

It’s time to stop fooling ourselves with romantic fantasies, and see pregnancy for what it really is: a cumbersome, disempowering, and potentially dangerous relic from a primitive, animalistic past. Time to get civilized.

And congratulations, it’s not even noon and you’ve already made me feel incredibly ill.

Are you sure it wasn’t something else?

My voicing the sentiment that I have a little trouble cheering enthusiastically about the verdict doesn’t mean I disagree with it. It just means that, as a mom (not that being one is necessary for this argument), it’s hard to get excited when the underlying context is that a child gets hurt — whether sooner or later. The tone here is a little more celebratory than I’m comfortable with, personally.

States have continued the varying legal activities on policy decisions that affect women who use illegal drugs during pregnancy. Recent studies, however, have failed to support any association between prenatal cocaine exposure (PCE) and increased prevalence of newborn serious congenital malformations or medical complications.

I’m not arguing that it’s perfectly okay to use cocaine while pregnant — clearly, the evidence is that it’s harmful to the child’s future development. However, there is NO evidence that using cocaine while pregnant causes fetal death, and that’s what McKnight was facing 12 years in prison for.

I agree that we need to do better for pregnant addicts and their children. But prosecuting them for murder under false pretenses is not the way to do it.