Lawsuit Challenges Wisconsin Law Allowing Pregnant Women To Be Incarcerated For Conduct Deemed Risky to Their Fetuses

The New York Times: Case Explores Rights of Fetus Versus Mother, by Erik Eckholm:

Alicia Beltran cried with fear and disbelief when county sheriffs surrounded her home on July 18 and took her in handcuffs to a holding cell.

She was 14 weeks pregnant and thought she had done the right thing when, at a prenatal checkup, she described a pill addiction the previous year and said she had ended it on her own — something later verified by a urine test. But now an apparently skeptical doctor and a social worker accused her of endangering her unborn child because she had refused to accept their order to start on an anti-addiction drug. . . .

_____________________________________

(h/t David Nadvorney)

I found this quotation from one doctor especially chilling:  

“She exhibits lack of self-control and refuses the treatment we have offered her,” wrote Dr. Breckenridge, who, according to Ms. Beltran, had not personally met or examined her. [Dr. Breckenridge] recommended “a mandatory inpatient drug treatment program or incarceration" . . . .

This sounds like something out of The Yellow Wallpaper.

-CEB