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Are Mothers Hazardous To Their Children’S Health?: Law, Culture, And The Framing Of Risk, Linda C. Fentiman
Are Mothers Hazardous To Their Children’S Health?: Law, Culture, And The Framing Of Risk, Linda C. Fentiman
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
This Article examines the psychosocial processes of risk construction and explores how these processes intersect with core principles of Anglo-American law. It does so by critiquing current cultural and legal perceptions that mothers, especially pregnant women, pose a risk to their children’s health. The Article’s core argument is that during the last four decades, both American society and American law have increasingly come to view mothers as a primary source of risk to children. This intense focus on the threat of maternal harm ignores significant environmental sources of injury, including fathers and other men, as well as exposure to toxic …
In The Name Of Fetal Protection: Why American Prosecutors Pursue Pregnant Drug Users (And Other Countries Don't), Linda C. Fentiman
In The Name Of Fetal Protection: Why American Prosecutors Pursue Pregnant Drug Users (And Other Countries Don't), Linda C. Fentiman
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
For more than three decades, American prosecutors have been bringing criminal prosecutions against pregnant women based on their use of drugs while pregnant, with charges ranging from child abuse or neglect to murder. Almost all of these women are poor, and the vast majority are also women of color--many with histories of childhood sexual or physical abuse and mental disability. In all but three states-Alabama, Kentucky, and South Carolina--such prosecutions have been declared unconstitutional or the resulting convictions have been overturned. Nonetheless, prosecutions continue to be brought, in what can only be described as a crusade against pregnant women in …