The standard already exists, and I’m perfectly happy with it. I wouldn’t make any change whatsoever to it.
Of course, your description is absolutely false. No judge in Wisconsin can order any pregnant woman into confinement on his or her own discretion with no available standard of proof to overturn the decision. That’s not what happened here, and I daresay it hasn’t happened anywhere in Wisconsin, at least in the modern era of jurisprudence.
The point that John Mace is socratically making by describing different examples of parental neglect and challenging you to point out “the line,” is that your own argument depends on just those kinds of distinctions. Presumably you understand that laws against parental neglect of children are workable despite not laying out specifically whether 10 minutes late picking him up, 30 minutes late, or an hour late 8 times in one month are actionable.
Not to answer for him, but in this particular case, the woman admitted to using opiate drugs during pregnancy and to using a “friend’s” prescription medication without a doctor’s supervision. My opinion is that these admission are sufficient to trigger the entirely reasonable condition that, for the health of her unborn child (or, if you prefer, for the health of her unborn fetus that will become a child) she see a doctor, which she refused to do. That refusal then triggers a civil law process by which a determination is made that her unborn child (her UFThaWBAC) is in need of protection – also entirely reasonable.
I’ll note that Wisconsin also has laws against the endangerment of children, the neglect of children, and even “causing mental harm” to children. I find the cries of “where is the line drawn” to be completely unpersuasive.
But it turns out – no laws against fucking dead people. Unfortunately the link in the post is no longer any good, but rest assured that the charges were dismissed against 3 teens who dug up a corpse to … have their way with it.
And, a parent who was caught giving cigarettes and beer to their children would or would not fall afoul of those laws?
Thank you, Assistant Socrates! So, John, uh, I mean, Socrates, what is your opinion of this particular case?
To which I replied…
And the ball’s in your court. Do you disagree with my statement? That a recent history of drug abuse is objective evidence to support the belief that she may abuse drugs again in the near future, i.e. during her pregnancy?
If you disagree, please state why.
In Wisconsin - giving beer to your children is a right of passage!
(Seriously, I’d be laying odds that in Wisconsin most parents allow teenagers to try beer long before they are 21 - maybe not get shitfaced drunk, but "sure, you can have a sip of Dad’s. This is a state where you can still buy your minor child a drink in a bar).
Can you articulate what the standard is then? It appears to be what I said: a judge’s belief. Do you feel that the judge had some evidence and what was that evidence?
So is your contention that a person can never really quit drugs? That if they use drugs once, it’s a reasonable belief that they will probably use drugs again?
If so, I again think you’re projecting yourself too much into this situation. Some people do use drugs and then realize that drugs are a bad idea and quit them completely.
No, my contention is…
Which you have not addressed. Do you agree with my contention? Or do you disagree with it? And if you do disagree with it, why?
The judge has to find, based on evidence that: “[the] expectant mother habitually lacks self-control in the use of alcohol beverages, controlled substances or controlled substance analogs, exhibited to a severe degree, to the extent that there is a substantial risk that the physical health of the unborn child, and of the child when born, will be seriously affected or endangered unless the expectant mother receives prompt and adequate treatment for that habitual lack of self-control.”
I don’t know, outside of the petition which is the woman’s assertions of fact, what evidence the judge relied on. It would be contained in the petitions and hearings that were held, and might not be open to the public. Speculating, I would guess that the evidence was that the woman had a drug problem, admitted it, and was using prescription medication to try and get over it. That prescription medication was, however, not hers, so she admitted to breaking the law to obtain drugs that she was not actually prescribed. She then refused to get her own prescription for the medication.
Part of the problem is that there was a hearing into this issue, but Ms. Beltran doesn’t recall or didn’t understand much of what occurred, and nobody else is talking to the press to ascertain what occurred in the hearing.
This is all speculation, and until we know more, I wouldn’t even want to guess what evidence was presented or how badly the judge/ADA/doctors screwed up.
Yes, I disagree. I thought my disagreement had made that clear.
The reason I think Beltran should not be considered a drug risk is that she quit using drugs.
This is an example of what I mean by articulating your reasons. Explain what evidence you used to decide that this individual meets the standard set by the law. I do not feel the standard was met in Beltran’s case.
I don’t think the article gives enough details, so I’m not ready to form an opinion. I am, however, not in favor of “fetal personhood” laws. Not sure what that has to do with the side discussion we were having about clear cut lines because there are any number of laws that are not mathematically determinative.
Because, in my opinion, fetal personhood laws are bad candidates for poorly defined, I-know-it-when-I-see-it laws. They assume away the vastly different ways that reasonable people feel about fetuses.
For example, I imagine there is large overlap between what Bricker and I would see as child abuse. Sure, there may be some gray area – is spanking OK? is paddling OK? Fundamentally, though, reasonable people put similar (high) values on the health and welfare of a child.
The same cannot be said about a fetus – Bricker is, I believe, a devout Catholic, firmly pro-life, and holds a fetus as the moral equivalent, or near moral equivalent as a child. I’m firmly pro-choice and don’t see the fetus as anything like a child, certainly not in the first, say, six months. So, the burden and care that he would ask of a pregnant woman is going to be very different than I would.
I think he’s a reasonable person and I think I am a reasonable person. However, we would require very different things from a pregnant woman, since we see that pregnancy and that fetus as very different things.
Lordy, there was a pitting and a debate broke out.
That was my fault, sorry. I already said above that I don’t really have the rhetorical skills for a solid pitting (or a debate, really).
Anyway, to get back to the OP, I fart in the general direction of the fetal personhood statute. Its mother was a hamster and its father smelt of elderberries.
You’re charmingly naive about drug abuse. Although this isn’t the time or place to educate you further.
Have a blessed day!
I like to think I have some knowledge of the subject. I ran a substance abuse treatment center for over a decade.
During your decade of running a substance abuse treatment center, did you ever encounter a client who said that while he or she had used drugs in the past, that was over, and they weren’t going to do it any more?
And if you did: did it ever happen, with any of those people, that their predictions turned out to be in error?