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Why Not Retribution? The Particularized Imagination and Justice for Pregnant Addicts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Lisa Eckenwiler
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Extract

The Law is a grim, unsmiling thing, Not Justice, though. Justice is witty and whimsical and kind and caring.

Rohinton Misuy, A Fine Balance;

When the South Carolina Supreme Court upheld the conviction and twelve-year sentence of Regina McKnight, it affirmed that state 's commitment to bring the full force of the law to the punishment of pregnant women who use drugs. Prosecutors linked the delivery of Ms.McKnight 's stillborn baby to her use of cocaine, and argued successfully for a finding of homicide by child abuse. The McKnight judgment follows the South Carolina Supreme Court decision in the case of Cornelia Whitner. Whitner was sentenced to prison for illegal drug use during pregnancy on the grounds that the viable fetus is a child under the state s criminal child endangerment statute.

On the basis of constitutional concerns such as due process and privacy, worries that criminal prosecutions may thwart public policy goals such as keeping families together and promoting the health of women and children, and findings that legislatures did not intend to include the fetus in the scope of drug laws or child abuse and neglect laws, criminal prosecution has been resisted in most jurisdictions.

Type
Article
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , Spring 2004 , pp. 89 - 99
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2004

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