Should a Pregnant Woman Be Punished for Exposing Her Fetus to Risk?

In some ethical and juristic respects a expectant char and her fetus can be considered separate. both(prenominal) the woman and the fetus be usually affected by the well- cosmos of one a nonher for as long as each of them live. The ethical and legal issues are challenged deeply in qualitys where the well-being of the fetus and the mother appear to be in conflict.Our society struggles with identifying cases where the fraught(p) womans interests and/or behaviors might put her fetus at risk. Criminal and/or courtly commitments should be used to bar pregnant women from exposing their fetuses to risk. The put in of Wisconsin enacted a statute allowing pregnant women whose habitual drinking exposes a fetus to substantial risks of physical harm to be taken into custody and undergo unvoluntary patient intoxicant treatment.Other evokes pose proposed or enacted bills that respond to women who expose a fetus to the harms of alcohol in pregnancy by means such as requiring a utomatic civil commitment of the woman, requiring health practitioners to typography newborns demonstrating antenatal exposure, expanding definitions of electric razor neglect to accept neonatal harm or prenatal damage to a pincer, and defining such acts as unlawful mistreatment in the introductory degree. 2 There have been many an(prenominal) efforts to restrain women from exposing their fetuses to damaging medicates, specifically cocaine, by applying law enforcement measures.In the prominent case of Whitner vs. convey of South Carolina (1997), Cornelia Whitner was charged with criminal child neglect for exposing her fetus to cocaine. She was sentenced by a South Carolina court to eight historic period in prison. Her viable fetus was lay down to be protected under the states child endangerment statute. South Carolina soon remains the first and only state whose law recognizes the viable fetus as a person and accordingly permits criminal prosecution of women for endange rment of a fetus.Another prominent case that was reviewed by the U.S. authoritative Court was Ferguson vs. metropolis of Charleston (2001). In 1989, a everyday hospital in Charleston, South Carolina began implementing a constitution to randomly test women for drugs who came for prenatal care or delivery without their certified consent. If the women tested positive, they were arrested and not given the opportunity to seek drug treatment. In 1990, the policy was modified to allow the women to avoid being arrested if they entered into a drug treatment program, attended all their counseling appointments, and passed all their incidental drug tests.Ten women tested positive for cocaine were arrested and responded by suing the hospital and the state. In 2001, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled in estimate of the women because the tests were administered without their consent. Drug and alcohol addictions are illnesses that use up some type of effective treatment to overcome them. I deal that women dupet intentionally expose their fetuses to drug or alcohol abuse, but if it happens, I believe the problem needs to be identified and addressed immediately because manifestly there is a problem.In my opinion, I believe that women should be punished for exposing their fetuses to drug and alcohol abuse. The fetuses are innocent and shouldnt have to suffer on the ignorance of their mother. I venture that treatment should be offered and monitored frequently. If the program is not followed by the pregnant woman, then she should not be allowed the opportunity to raise the child until she has proven that she will provide a safe and drug-free environment for the child.