Criminally Bad Parenting, Ctd

A backlash to the latest parenting panic is in full swing. German Lopez highlights the above map, which brings perspective to the question of kids dying when left alone in cars. But just today, another father in Georgia was arrested for leaving his two young children and infant in his car while shopping. This of course on the heels of the 22-month-old Georgia toddler who died recently after his father left him strapped in a hot car for hours.

Meanwhile, as Deborah L. Rhode observes, many pregnant women who take drugs don’t need to wait until giving birth to be charged with bad parenting. And laws against prenatal drug use risk unfair enforcement:

Government statistics indicate that about 5 percent of pregnant women use illicit drugs, 11 percent use alcohol, and 16 percent use tobacco. Although cocaine was once considered to be the most harmful form of substance abuse, many of its supposed symptoms have since been linked to poor nutrition, inadequate prenatal care, and other drugs. Considerable recent evidence indicates that cocaine’s effects are less severe than those of alcohol and are comparable to those of tobacco.

Yet cocaine use is far more likely than alcohol or tobacco use to be a basis for prosecution.

In [Lynn] Paltrow and [Jeanne] Flavin’s study, 84 percent of cases of prosecution or other intervention involved illicit drugs, mainly cocaine. Such selective prosecution reflects class and racial biases that are also evident in reporting practices. In one study, black women were ten times more likely than white women to be reported to governmental authorities for substance use, despite similar rates of addiction. In another survey of New York hospitals, those serving low-income women were much more likely than those serving wealthier patients to test new mothers for drugs, and to turn positive results over to child protection authorities.

Jessica Valenti sounds off:

Obviously, doing drugs while pregnant is a horrible idea. But criminalizing addicted pregnant women who need treatment is bad for babies and their mothers. It’s a short-term, punitive measure with no positive lasting impact to simply ensure that pregnant women who need drug treatment and pre-natal care won’t seek either of those options, for fear of having their children taken away from them.