Meth in fetuses

If someone beats a pregnant woman or puts a toxic “Mickey” in her drink and, as a result, kills her fetus, that individual can be prosecuted for killing the child to-be.

But if a mother takes a massive dose of methamphetamine that results in the death of her fetus, in the eyes of the law, she hasn’t killed anyone.

Fremont County coroner Ed McAuslan wants to change that. McAuslan broached the subject using the above analogy Thursday during his office’s annual Sudden Death Seminar at Riverton’s Wyoming Fire Academy. “Why isn’t anyone concerned about our infants?,” he said to a large crowd made up mostly of county coroners and law enforcement officials from throughout the state. “(A meth-using mother) walks away free and there isn’t anything anybody can do about it — to me that’s not right.”

For McAuslan, the issue isn’t merely ideological. He said he has seen the tragic results of mothers who have used methamphetamine while pregnant. Over the past three years, three children, one each year, have died with large amounts of meth in their system in Fremont County, he said.

Although in two of the instances the infants’ bodies contained enough of the highly addictive stimulant to be considered a lethal dose in adults, the cause of the children’s deaths, officially speaking, is undetermined. McAuslan said this is because no definitive study has been conducted on the effects of meth on the unborn. “This is one of the problems we are encountering — nobody has anything to gauge it by,” he said. But he called the data gained from autopsies on the three recent “meth babies” the “beginnings of information to fight the problem.”

McAuslan suspects there are many more instances of newborns in the county who die as the result of meth use because Wyoming coroners are not called upon to investigate most deaths that occur inside hospitals. In the case of the three meth babies, just one was born in the hospital, while the other two were born in private residences.

All three of the babies were born premature and severely underweight, according to McAuslan. In the instance that occurred this year, McAuslan said the mother had been sleeping on the top bunk of a bunk bed when her water broke. Her roommates, unable to care for her or the newborn, called authorities, who tried in vain for 51 minutes to save the child’s life. Although no study has been done on the effects of meth on fetuses, McAuslan said the current information suggests that meth increases a mother’s heart rate and blood pressure, which can result in spontaneous abortion or premature birth. It also restricts blood flow to the fetus, which can result in stunted growth, and it increases blood pressure within the fetus, which can result in fetal stroke.

But despite the evidence, public officials have been unable to address the problem, McAuslan said. He blames this partly on legislators’ fear of getting into a debate about abortion.

But “this isn’t an abortion issue,” he said. “Women aren’t taking meth to abort their babies. They’re taking it because they like it.”

He said under the case Roe v. Wade, which guarantees abortion rights, it is still illegal for abortions to be performed by anyone other than a licensed physician. He added that because people can be prosecuted for killing a pregnant woman’s fetus, a precedent exists for recognizing the rights of the unborn. Because of this, legislators can skirt the abortion issue, he said.

“Unless we have a group of people who are willing to stand up and talk about this, nothing is going to happen,” he said. “Suicides, homicides, accidents — we’re having a lot of people being killed by meth. But everybody is forgetting about the fetus. The attitude is: ‘Let it die. What difference does it make?’” But McAuslan sees progress on the legislative front, citing recent legislation proposed by Rep. Elaine Harvey (R-Lovell), which would have made it illegal to expose the unborn to meth.

The bill died this past legislative session for lack of support, but McAuslan expects the bill to be reintroduced during the upcoming session, which starts in January.

McAuslan said Wyoming does have a statute that makes it illegal to expose children to meth, but a local judge has interpreted it to exclude fetuses, since they are not mentioned in the statute.

Because of the judge’s precedent-setting interpretation more than a year ago, no county attorneys in the state are willing to prosecute mothers for meth use while pregnant, McAuslan said.

He said the meth-using mother who eluded prosecution is now being prosecuted again after she was allegedly found in possession of a large amount of methamphetamine in her home with her son present. Guest speaker Terry Davis of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who closed McAuslan’s presentation, said the child may have survived, but due to the unknown long-term effects from meth exposure “that 2-year-old will never be a normal child.” Davis, of Georgia, urged the audience to speak out to their legislators in support of Harvey’s bill. She said Wyoming could set a precedent for the entire country if it passes because “legislators don’t like to lead, they like to follow.”

McAuslan said the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes have “jumped ahead of the state” by passing laws making it illegal to expose fetuses to meth. But the proposal is not without critics. The American Civil Liberties Union has spoken against prosecuting mothers for drug use while pregnant, saying doing so will keep them from seeking treatment and medical attention for fear of being arrested.

Meth is getting really out of control, especially here in Sue York city, lair of Hellary and leeches who pose as lawyers and human beings who worship Hellary. I drive a taxi and I lose count the amount of Meth heads I pick up every week. The latest being one wacko last night who wanted to see if he could ply himself through my partition and ended up getting himself stuck. His head was on my shoulder and I could have smashed his face in at anytime in self defense, but of course one must remember the leeches. Oh yes, then we have the wacko last week who grabbed my steering wheel and turned it while I was going 40 MPH down 2nd ave when I would not shut off Rush. Do not harm the passenger as that too can lead to another inhuman leech on your wallet.

I'm of the oppinion that if a meth addict kills her unborn baby through her drug use, that it's probably the most merciful fate that child is likely to get. If it survives to be born it will likely be physically and mentally disabled and will also likely face a hellish life of abuse and neglect.

It's because a meth-using mother is a victim (never evil) and a man is always evil. That's why meth moms walk away free. Women aren't always responsible for their actions - and even if they are, they are still just victims and had no other choice. Probably manipulated by a man somehow.

The problem is really spreading in north Georgia. All sorts of traffic stops incidentally net meth paraphernalia and significant quantities of the drug itself.

It's about as impenetrable as the idea of suicidal terrorism. What kind of rock would you have to live under to not know how incredibly addictive and dangerous it is? If all else about it were benign - the method of production alone would keep any sane person from getting near it. Merck, Pfizer, et. al. might make some errors once in a while, but the drugs cleared for productions are at least produced with six sigma levels of quality and security. Meth is made by those with a rudimentary knowledge of chemistry utilizing cleaning products mixed in a bathtub!

I was thinking about the image of a meth addict's teeth (or lack thereof as the case may be) when I visited my dentist a few months ago. I was almost going to ask if he had ever seen any examples of the rotted teeth that mark heavy duty users. But I realized that anyone using that stuff, to that degree, is not visiting the dentist.

I would be willing to take a live and let live stance on this if they were only killing themselves. The children, the increased health-care and law enforcement expenses - all of it is the classic example of letting externalities fall on the productive and responsible members of society. It aggravates me greatly.

They still try to see a dentist, but most dentists refuse to treat them, especially if the patient is on welfare. All they will do is pull all their teeth and give them dentures. I have known 15 year olds with disgusting meth mouth, who just can't face the idea of wearing dentures, so they go around with huge cavities visible.

Meth also causes psychotic episodes. We had a sixteen year old who was ordered to do service for a woman in restitution for a previous breaking and entry. The kid went over and the woman let him in and he raped and murdered her, dragged this 350 lb woman up a ladder to her loft, and strangled her with a vacuum cleaner cord. This kid would never have been able to do that under normal circumstances (straight).

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