Criminalizing Addiction in Motherhood: A Modern Phenomenon
Ohio State Legal Studies Research Paper No. 705
Drug Enforcement and Policy Center, No. 51, May 2022
11 Pages Posted: 3 May 2022
Date Written: May 2, 2022
Abstract
We have built motherhood into an impossible ideal. Mothers are expected to do it all, be it all, have it all. And these unachievable expectations begin before a child is even born. If something goes wrong during pregnancy, we immediately blame the mother. This culture of blame becomes even more magnified when mothers struggle with addiction. Mothers are blamed for struggling with substance use disorders (SUDs), despite modern medicine establishing—definitively and indisputably—that addiction is a disease, not a choice or a moral failing.
Starting in the 1980s, the criminal justice system began a determined effort to criminalize mothers struggling with SUDs. Drawing on law review articles, legal precedent, and newspaper articles, this paper will explain the relatively modern legal development of criminalizing mothers for struggling with SUDs and contextualize this movement within the evolving cultural beliefs surrounding motherhood and addiction. This paper will detail the ways in which prosecutors first began filing charges against mothers for exposing their fetuses to drug metabolites in utero, the shaky legal foundations of these early attempts, and how state statutes expanded to provide stronger legal footing for criminalizing mothers with addiction. The paper will conclude by explaining the ultimate futility of trying to use the criminal system to “deter” mothers from the disease of addiction and highlight policy changes that would be better suited for addressing the problem of maternal substance use disorders.
Keywords: motherhood, mothers, addiction, Substance Use Disorder (SUD), criminalize, public health, policy
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