Community Listening Forum Toolkit: Make Your Voice Heard!
This step-by-step guide includes everything you need to host a succesful Community Listening Forum. Learn more...
Recovery Community Organization Toolkit: Building the Voice of the Organized Recovery Community
This guide includes steps on starting up a Recovery Community Organization. Learn more…
|
eNewsletter - June 23, 2010
Recovery Community Organization News
People Advocating Recovery (PAR) in KY was part of a successful broad-based alliance of over 60 organizations supporting the rights of a woman who had been arrested and prosecuted for “wanton endangerment of a child” for becoming a mother while addicted to drugs. The victory came in a ruling by The Kentucky Supreme Court, dismissing charges brought against the mother.
Mike Barry , CEO of People Advocating Recovery (PAR) praised the decision as a victory for mothers and babies. "Today, the Kentucky Supreme Court protected the health and welfare of some of Kentucky's most vulnerable citizens by refusing to criminalize a whole class of women who really need supportive services and quality drug treatment programs," stated Barry.
Public health experts agree that punitive measures against drug using women scare women away from prenatal care and drug treatment, both of which are necessary for healthy babies. PAR and sixty other organizations and experts signed on to amicus curiae briefs, explaining to the court that punishing pregnant women is bad for babies.
The court, in its discussion of Kentucky law, "recognized that the application of the criminal abuse statutes to a woman's conduct during pregnancy, could have an unlimited scope and create an indefinite number of new 'crimes' ... a 'slippery slope' whereby the law could be construed as covering the full range of a pregnant woman's behavior..." The court pointed out that this could be used to justify absurd ends, such a criminalizing downhill skiing, and that the "case-by-case" approach, suggested by the Commonwealth, would be so vague and arbitrary as to make the law unconstitutional.
The Louisville Courier Journal covered the ruling, People Advocating Recovery has information from the case and a webinar on the issue, and the National Advocates for Pregnant Women has background information as well.
Support Faces & Voices of Recovery today!