Womenstake, NWLC's Blog

The "crack baby" scare of the 1980s helped fuel a movement by prosecutors across the country to charge women who used drugs while pregnant or whose newborns tested positive for drugs with child abuse, neglect and even manslaughter [PDF]. But what really happened to those babies who were supposed to "overwhelm every social service delivery system that they come in contact with for the rest of their lives," according to one newscaster at the time? Were they, in the words of columnist Charles Krauthammer, doomed to "a life of certain suffering, of probably deviance, or permanent inferiority"? In a word — no. A recent New York Times "Retro Report" video revisited the crack baby hysteria and found no evidence that these dire predictions came true. These findings, which were being reported as early as 1992, should remind prosecutors and judges that the causal link between drug use and a specific pregnancy outcome is speculative, at best. While no one condones drug use in pregnancy, punitive measures do nothing to improve maternal, fetal, or child health [PDF]. Instead, they discourage women from seeking prenatal care and drug-treatment for fear of being prosecuted. 

The Mississippi state Supreme Court recently heard the case of Nina Buckhalter who tested positive for methamphetamine after suffering a stillbirth and was charged with manslaughter. The prosecutor in the case claims the drugs caused the stillbirth even though the actual cause is unknown and there is no clear evidence that methamphetamine use can cause a stillbirth.

Yesterday, Srikanth Srinivasan became the first South Asian judge confirmed to a federal court of appeals. In addition, President Obama has recently made some groundbreaking nominations. Last week, after Shelly Dick was the first woman confirmed to the Middle District of Louisiana, President Obama nominated Carolyn McHugh, who would be the first woman from Utah to sit on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, Elizabeth Wolford, who would be the first woman to sit on the Western District of New York, Pamela Reeves, who would be the first women to sit on the Eastern District of Tennessee, and Debra Brown, nominated to the Northern District of Mississippi, who would be the first African-American woman to serve as a federal judge in Mississippi. Yesterday as well, President Obama nominated Landya B. McCafferty, who if confirmed would be the first woman judge on the U.S. District Court in New Hampshire, and Susan P. Watters, who if confirmed would be the first woman judge on the U.S. District Court in Montana. 

Today, Hobby Lobby will try to explain to all the judges on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals why employees of a craft store chain should be denied full insurance coverage of birth control at their bosses' discretion. Hobby Lobby is the largest of the 31 for-profit companies attempting to challenge the federal birth control benefit, with over 13,000 employees who will be affected by what the judges decide. 

This is Hobby Lobby's fourth try at getting a court to accept its argument that the religious beliefs of a for-profit company should overrule women's health and that it should not have to cover some forms of birth control. The district court that first denied Hobby Lobby's request to get out of providing the full birth control benefit said that any burden on its owners' religious beliefs was too "indirect and attenuated" to meet the legal standard: 

"[T]he particular burden of which plaintiffs complain is that funds, which plaintiffs will contribute to a group health plan, might, after a series of independent decisions by health care providers and patients covered by [the corporate] plan, subsidize someone else's participation in an activity that is condemned by plaintiff[s'] religion." 

The 10th Circuit said "We agree" when it denied Hobby Lobby's request to temporarily get out of providing the benefit.