Pregnant woman arrested for not following doctor's orders to take Suboxone

[Vitalux]

Being honest was her downfall


I read this article and was at odds, how the woman was doing something to actually help her developing child.

It is a slippery slope when the State can force one to medicate



Alicia Beltran, 28, had done what she thought she needed to do in order to have a healthy first pregnancy. Her only mistake was telling her doctor’s office about her efforts to protect her fetus. Beltran had a bout with addiction to the painkiller Percocet in the previous year. She took steps to get herself off of it, including getting some of an anti-addiction drug, Suboxone, from a friend. With that, she weaned herself off of the Percocet. She finished the process a few days before going to a clinic for a prenatal checkup. In providing her medical history to a physician’s assistant (PA), she helpfully included this information. Drug-testing done on that day confirmed that she had no opiates in her system.

The PA wanted Beltran to go on Suboxone again, but she refused. She hadn’t been able to afford her own prescription in the first place and now felt confident that she was done with drugs. Two weeks after the checkup, a social worker came knocking on her door. She insisted that Beltran take Suboxone or else a court order would force her to. An angry Beltran again refused. Two days later, her house was surrounded by officers from the sheriff’s department. She was arrested and taken in shackles to a court hearing.

Rights of the fetus were protected, but not the mom’s

In court, Beltran was told that she wasn’t being assigned a lawyer, but that one had already been appointed for her fetus. The basis of her arrest was a 1998 state law called the ‘cocaine mom’ act. According to the New York Times, the law allows authorities to forcibly detain pregnant women who use illegal drugs or alcohol ‘to a severe degree’ but won’t accept treatment. The justification is that the women are endangering their fetuses.

Beltran was faced with a choice: treatment or jail. So she chose treatment and was sent to a center two hours away from her family. It took over two months and the intervention of women’s rights groups to win her release. Now, the state of Wisconsin faces a federal lawsuit for depriving Beltran of her constitutional rights. The law’s constitutionality is being argued by National Advocates For Pregnant Women, the Reproductive Justice Clinic of the New York University School of Law, and the lawyer that Beltran’s mother hired, Linda S.Vanden Heuvel.

This case is the first federal lawsuit against ‘Personhood’ of the fetus laws

The case is an historic one. In a press release, the National Advocates For Pregnant Women describe it as the “First Federal Challenge To Arrest Of Pregnant Woman Under ‘Personhood’-Like Measure”. The fact that it IS the first is, in itself, remarkable. Similar situations have happened to hundreds of pregnant women across the country, as documented by the National Advocates For Pregnant Women. The numbers have been on the rise over the last decade.

Seventeen states label substance abuse during pregnancy as child abuse. Wisconsin, Minnesota, and South Dakota all allow women to be forcibly held in treatment facilities. Thirty-eight states consider fetuses to be persons in homicide or manslaughter cases, which can be used to accuse women of murder if a fetus dies.

Beltran’s case is far from the exception and is dangerously close to becoming the norm as more states, driven by ‘Right to Life’ groups, seek to exert physical control over women. But the fear of intervention by the state may be keeping women from seeking prenatal care. This creates — give yourself a gold star if you guessed it — potential harm for their fetuses.

The final outcome for Beltran is unknown. She still has to face a court date on the original charges. The most serious possible result is that her parental rights over the unborn child could be severed. This is a woman who took steps on her own to insure a healthy pregnancy, who is still close to the baby’s father, and who would have liked to enjoy her first pregnancy rather than live in fear.

State’s ‘protection’ of the fetus cost Beltran her job

But the worst part of her immediate situation is this: by forcing her into treatment, the judicial system cost Beltran her job. She has finally been freed from the treatment lockdown she was strong-armed into, but now has no means of support for herself and her child.

But you've heard this story before, haven’t you? To the fanatics who are dogged in their pursuit of ‘personhood’ for every unborn fetus, who are determined to chain women to their own punitive, narrow-minded morality, the personhood of an actual living, breathing child simply doesn’t matter. Support for the child? Meh. They did their duty by ensuring it was born. From that point on, Beltran and other women in her situation can be cut loose to deal with the consequences. They’re on their own.

Source:
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/10...-pregnant-mom/

[Flash]

This is really a two edge sword. I have seen drug addict babies born of drug addict mothers and this is terrible for the child. Not only are they addicted from birth and have terrible withdrawal symptoms, but also their brain does not develope normally. The differentialted layers in the brain are often undifferetiated in the child and this child will never be able to have regular thinking processes, including learning abilities. So, do you protect the mom's rights, in some cases the right to drug herself, or do you protect the child health?

The other edge is this: the law is pushed and has been promulgated because and for rights to life groups, who are also against abortion and any women's rights to their body, when it concerns children. They are also most of the time flooded by fundamentalist christians who are as bad as their counterparts in the Muslim world, you cannot reason with them. In this context, being promulgated by extremists of one kind, it is obvious that it will be applied in extremist ways. Having a mother on NO DRUGS whatsoever being jailed to be put on drugs is a major problem too. A mother caring for herself and her baby should be helped to do so, not put in jail.

[Bubu]

testing the waters again for total control. They are not gonna make it. Too late people has started waking up and the rate is increasing. Thankfully there aren't such cases in ours.

[Bubu]

Posted by Flash (here)
and this child will never be able to have regular thinking processes, including learning abilities. .

regular thinking process today is being able to accept the corrupted dogmas and learning/accepting the deceptions those who are outside the prison or think differently is deemed unfit.

hope you have a different meaning on those words

[Maia Gabrial]

What people need to realize is that doctors can ONLY RECOMMEND a course of action. We can ask as many questions as we want until we're satisfied. Then WE take it from there because it'll be our choice. Many doctors seem to think that they're the authority over our bodies. NOT true! Hell no! When will people start taking back their powers? At least, start with this. WE are the ultimate authority over our own bodies. PERIOD!

I told one of my caregivers this and she didn't like it, but she didn't argue about it. Why? Because I was RIGHT! Don't hesitate to let your doctors know this. Knock them off their self-imposed pedestals for crying out loud; especially when they walk all over you!

[Ellisa]

The report referred to a Physician's Assistant. We do not have these where I live and only a doctor/dentist/vet can prescribe otherwise prohibited drugs and medicine. I assume the woman's imprisonment was as the result of a doctor's examination and not solely as the result of a notion of an assistant. Surely the way around these cases (and a drug taking mother can definitely injure her foetus), is to test this mother, and others in her situation, frequently - if she is found to be negative to drugs then there is no need for her to take medication-- which surely could also injure the foetus. I agree with Maia-- even a doctor cannot force medication on a person, but the grey area here is that in the US a great deal of autonomy has been given to the unborn foetus, much of which obscures women's rights. Whether this is a good thing or not I do not know, but it does lead to cases like this, where the situation, on the surface, seems really bizarre.

[Flash]

Posted by Bubu (here)

Posted by Flash (here)
and this child will never be able to have regular thinking processes, including learning abilities. .

regular thinking process today is being able to accept the corrupted dogmas and learning/accepting the deceptions those who are outside the prison or think differently is deemed unfit.

hope you have a different meaning on those words

you seem dogmatic in your approach Bubu, have you ever tried to live with half your brain just for one day? Regular thinking process is just that, regular thinking process, like you and i are presently doing - the processes needed to differentiate between truth and false, the processes needed to not be screwed by the Cabals, etc.

That is the meaning of my words. Do not change it for something it is not.

When you walk at 5 years old like an old men because you have no gross motor skills, or when you do not understand the words told to you ad therfore cannot answer, or when your facial traits have been modified by fœtal alcool and you brain abilities followed making you mentally retarded, don't tell me these kids deserved being crippled.

[grannyfranny100]

I am sick of women being considered as nothing more than uncaring, unthinking incubators subject to government control. Who does the government think they are kidding when TPTB's agenda is to cut down the population of the world.

This is another control device to teach people to give up their sovereignty!! Entire generations are growing up just looking for whatever governmental freebies they can get and then whining when the government takes control of their lives.

I feel the same way about right to lifers trying to end abortions as an option. If they want to institute anti-abortion laws they should include nine month prison sentences for the impregnator while the woman is force to carry a baby she doesn't want.

If the fetus already has a soul before birth as they claim and can't prove, then the unborn child is experiencing nine months of rejection. Male dominated legislators would be unlikely to pass anti-abortion laws if the guy would be penalized, too.

Already too many highly educated couples are opting to remain childless and they are the ones with the best parenting skills. People electing to become parents should not be controlled by the government. All should claim their sovereignty and get out from under the control of the government.

Yes I can understand concern about children born with all kinds of problems but where are the right to livers once the kid is born? Their interest ceases at that point.