From Driving to Drugs: Governmental Regulation of Pregnant Women's Lives after Webster

Johnsen, Dawn E.

doi:10.2307/3312183

Cited by 15 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…As one author comments: A wide range of common conditions and activities by a pregnant woman can pose some threat to fetal development, including: being overweight or underweight, working or even living in certain environments, rejecting or undergoing certain medical treatments, exercising, not exercising, failing to eat "well," failing to "stay off her feet," smoking, drinking alcohol, ingesting caffeine, taking nonprescription, prescription, or illegal drugs, and suffering physical harm through accident or illness. 58 In addition, there are actions women can take before a fetus has been conceived or before she knows she is pregnant that can affect a fetus's development, including achieving ideal body weight, maintaining adequate nutrition including folic acid supplementation, and managing chronic medical conditions such as diabetes.…”

Section: Consequences To Public Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

iPLEDGE Allegiance to the Pill: Evaluation of Year 1 of a Birth Defect Prevention and Monitoring System

Schonfeld¹,

Amoura

Kratochvil³

2009

J. Law. Med. Ethics

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The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in collaboration with pharmaceutical manufacturers, have recently implemented a heavily revised risk-management program for patients on isotretinoin (Accutane), a drug with known and pronounced teratogenic effects. This revised risk management plan places significant burdens on both providers and patients in the hopes of achieving its goal of reducing fetal exposure to isotretinoin. The main focus of this paper is to discuss the burdens of various aspects of the program in relationship to potential corresponding benefits. In particular, we evaluate the pregnancy rates of women on isotretinoin therapy compared with that of the general population and the rate changes based on the risk management programs. Additionally, we investigate whether the benefits of the program for women have increased as the benefits have risen. We devote special attention to the ethical implications of the intent of the program and to an analysis of the ethical justification of the restrictions placed on women of childbearing potential (WCP) as it compares to the risk-benefit relationship of using isotretinoin.

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Section: Consequences To Public Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

iPLEDGE Allegiance to the Pill: Evaluation of Year 1 of a Birth Defect Prevention and Monitoring System

Schonfeld¹,

Amoura

Kratochvil³

2009

J. Law. Med. Ethics

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“…Researchers estimate that 11% of babies (375,000) born each year have been exposed to street drugs in utero (Chasnoff 1989), and that up to 4,000 are born each year with full-blown Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, with up to 11,000 more experiencing Fetal Alcohol Effect (Abel 1984). The responses to this problem range from ad-hoc decisions to prosecute and incarcerate women, to state mandated reporting of pregnant women, to proposed national legislation making it a crime to give birth to a baby affected by drugs or alcohol and tying grant money for treatment programs to the imposition of three years of incarceration in a custodial rehabilitation center for convicted women (Johnsen 1989). One exception is the Connecticut legislature's decision to fund four model treatment programs for women and their children (Stoddard 1990).…”

Section: Alcohol and Drug Usementioning

confidence: 99%

At Women's Expense:

Roth

1994

Women & Politics

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Analyses of so-called maternal-fetal conflict typically take fetal rights as given. In contrast, this paper argues that rights are socially created and do not come free. It analyzes how courts participate in the social construction of fetal rights in the areas of pregnant women's medical treatment and drug and alcohol use. Women are forced to bear the costs of making fetal rights real, burdening them without demonstrating any clear pattern of benefit to fetuses. It concludes that social policy that cares about women and empowers them will serve fetuses as well.I can't work; I can't smoke; I can't drink. This isn't a fetus-it's a parole officer.-Susannah, ''thirtysomething'' 1 In the United States today, an extensive array of policies, practices, and ways of making decisions systematically burdens and harms women in the name of the fetus. This array often fails to achieve its goal of helping the fetus, or is simply not needed to achieve that goal. The abstract question whether the fetus is a person usually frames discussion of these measures. My discussion will bracket that debate, because it misses what is most important-the actual effects of these policies.Nobody knows exactly how many women have been directly affected by these policies and practices so far. Women have been subject to them in almost every state in the nation-at least 48 and the District of Columbiaduring the past decade. 2 The measures gained popularity throughout the 1980s and 90s, as more and more employers, hospitals, and government jurisdictions imposed limits on fertile, and especially on pregnant, women's actions. They are part of a larger set of contemporary social and political struggles to define the parameters of women's independence. In the U.S. political system, courts are important arbiters of these struggles, and their decisions often constitute a kind of moral discourse that governs both how women should be thought of and how women can be treated.Although she does not address fetal advocacy politics, Martha Minow offers some insights about the lure of establishing fetal rights. When someone makes rights claims, she asserts her identity as an individual entitled to equality and liberty, and emphasizes her essential sameness to others as a person and a member of the polity. Rights analysis further ''treats each individual as a separate unit, related only to the state rather than to a group or to social bonds'' (Minow 1990, 216). Fetal rights claims, then, present a rhetorically powerful strategy by giving the fetus an individual identity, asserting its equality with the woman, and establishing its independent relationship with the state that bypasses the pregnant woman.Rights rhetoric is also powerful because it obscures the question of costs. When a court or other institution decides to give fetuses rights, it has to assign the costs of making those rights real to some individual or collectivity. That assignment-who should bear the costs-is a political question that has received very little direct public debate. The explicit or ...

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“…They further note that the Supreme Court has never recognized the personhood status of a fetus, so that there is no other entity with which one can come into conflict. Neither the father nor the state, they say, has the right to interfere with a woman's decisions about her behavior and her body (Johnsen, 1989;Rothman, 1989;Petchesky, 1990).…”

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confidence: 99%

Paternal-Fetal Conflict: An Examination of Paternal Responsibilities to the Fetus

Losco

Shublak

1994

Polit. life sci.

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Virtually all of the literature regarding liability for fetal health and well-being has concentrated on female behavior. Prosecution of women for “fetal abuse or neglect” has received widespread popular press coverage. Far less attention has been paid to the role of males in contributing to the health and welfare of newborns. This paper redresses this lack of attention by reviewing the ways in which males contribute to newborn health and by examining legal doctrine to determine if the same legal challenges that have been advanced against pregnant women are applicable to males as well. Questions are raised regarding the consequences of prosecuting males for their role in contributing to fetal harm.

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From Driving to Drugs: Governmental Regulation of Pregnant Women's Lives after Webster

Cited by 15 publications

References 0 publications

iPLEDGE Allegiance to the Pill: Evaluation of Year 1 of a Birth Defect Prevention and Monitoring System

iPLEDGE Allegiance to the Pill: Evaluation of Year 1 of a Birth Defect Prevention and Monitoring System

At Women's Expense:

Paternal-Fetal Conflict: An Examination of Paternal Responsibilities to the Fetus

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