Posted on 05/08/2007 7:32:57 AM PDT by greyfoxx39
SANTA FE— Rene Nicole was high on cocaine and weighed just 5 pounds when she came into this world.
Her mother admitted to taking crack cocaine two days before the baby's birth in 2003.
Now, it's up to the New Mexico Supreme Court to decide whether Rene Nicole's mother committed child abuse.
Attorneys representing the mother contend New Mexico's child abuse laws don't apply to unborn children and argue that the state's highest court would be setting a "radical" precedent if it interpreted them as such.
"This would be an unprecedented expansion of the law," Joseph Goldberg told the court Monday.
(Excerpt) Read more at abqjournal.com ...
This article is completely frustrating to me! First, the question of whether the child abuse charge is warranted, and then the totally stupid ploy of relating a crack-head pregnant woman's actions to the effects of GASP! second-hand smoke. Beam me up, Scotty.
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NM ping
If one can be charged with *murdering* an unborn child (except,of course,in an abortion mill) then one can be charged with abusing one.And as for smoking three packs a day around the mother,I'm a non-smoker who supports smoking rights (with some limitations) but I can see where this kind of behavior can be at least somewhat harmful to the child.
UM...if THIS is abuse....then what would abortion be considered?
I think both are bad. As a smoker myself I do not smoke inside my house and go outside so as not to affect my adopted son. As a single father of a crack baby who is now 11 I can tell you that each day is a struggle and probably always will be.
Wonder what the ideological leaning of this court is? Constructionist or “Expansionist” if you will?
I can see where this case would conflict a liberal expansionist jurist.
If it is just “stuff” that the mother has no DUTY to protect (which is the case when she is permitted to abort it because she wants to whether it be financial, dislike the daddy, or wrong sex on the ultrasound), then this type of legislation cannot stand.
I hold to a higher standard that abortion is criminal. It is infanticide.
My objection is the equating the damage caused by second-hand smoke through the mother, which would make it third-hand to the child, and the ingestion of crack by the mother which affects the child directly.
I see this comment to be deliberatly misleading by the attorney and typical lib tactics of "the smoker is evil, EVIL I say!" And I don't smoke.
I'm certainly no obstetrician or neonatologist but it seems to me that that umbilical cord means that the smoke wouldn't be "third hand" to the child but "second hand" just as would be the case with a pregnant woman shooting heroin.
I,like you,am not at all in love with the Smoking Nazis but it seems very plausible that smoking heavily around a pregnant woman could very well have *some*,but not necessarily *enormously*,harmful effect on that developing child.
The question is how to apply that information. Can the state demand and obligate the mother to provide an optimal environment to develop in? If so, who gets to decide what is optimal, and how do you enforce compliance, or punish non-compliance? And, as should be but frequently isn't asked, what might the unintended consequences be?
I was born in the 50's when many middle class folks like my parents smoked.Back then either little was known about the effects of smoking on smokers or unborn kids or the AMA kept quiet about it.My mother smoked while pregnant with me.So did my Dad.They had no knowledge of doing so causing any possible harm to me.
Today I'd be willing to bet that many studies of this exact scenario have been done.So,at the very least,it could be said that a pregnant woman shouldn't smoke and that her husband (now *there's* a quaint concept) shouldn't either.
Agreed. But it's one thing to submit it as a general principle and quite another to bring the force of government to bear to enforce it. Does the end (and potential unintended consequences) justify the means?
My father smoked heavily around my pregnant mother with both my brother and I. My brother is 6 years older than I am. We were both born with NON-genetic birth defects. My parent lived on a farm and ate primarily organic food they grew themselves. few pesticides were used and my mother did not take any prescription medicine. The only toxic element during my mothers pregnancy was my father’s cigarette smoke.
Smokers are selfish drug addicts and they smell horrible too.
The point is this State is finally recognizing the humanity of the unborn. We should all support that 100%.
Saw today that this was ruled on, not child abuse, because the child abuse laws do not apply to a fetus. I think this ruling will open the door on people charged with murder in the case of killing an unborn child where they abuse the mother resulting in a miscarriage, or other ways. Too bad for NM.
http://kob.com/article/stories/S83238.shtml?cat=517
NM, King Bill Richardson's personal fiefdom, is nearly as liberal as CA. The ruling doesn't surprise ;(
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