Protect Privacy or Save the Child?

The article/news story I chose to talk about for my seventh blog was written by Geraldine Sealey of ABC News. This particular piece is titled, “Drug Testing Pregnant Women Nixed”. A particular example they use to describe the social problem in more detail is, when women were being arrested in hospital beds at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC in Charleston, SC). The argument is that the process of drug testing pregnant women and then arresting her for it coming back positive is an unreasonable search.

As stated in the article,

“In a 6-3 ruling, the court said drug testing by a public hospital in Charleston, S.C., violated the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution — which bars unreasonable search and seizure — even though the hospital was trying to prevent women from harming their fetuses by using crack cocaine.”

According to the article/news story, is stated in the constitution that, “Under the Constitution, if women don't agree to the tests, a warrant is necessary, the court ruled. The justices asked a lower court to determine whether the patients actually consented to the tests.” To me, this is honestly what I believe should take place, with some different situations available. Obviously, this is my own personal opinion, but I do hope that many people would agree.

As stated by congressman Justice John Paul Steven, while writing for the court, “While the ultimate goal of the program may well have been to get the women in question into substance abuse treatment and off of drugs, the immediate objective of the searches was to generate evidence for law enforcement purposes in order to reach that goal." Along with this it was addressed within the article/news story that the hospitals have the obligation while collecting this evidence to make sure that women were made aware of their constitutional rights. The opinions of Justice Stevens’ were “backed up” by author officials such as; Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen G. Breyer. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy on the othe hand says that these drug tests were unconstitutional.

The issue of the women in South Carolina, like I said before, took place at MUSC (The Medical University of South Carolina located in Charleston, SC). The issue was about the policy they had where woman had been arrested (while in their hospital bed) for testing positive to drugs. They were given the choice to receive treatment or be arrested. This all is said to have been under the “states’ child –endangerment law”. The testing at MUSC in particular began taking place in the fall of 1989. In the year of 1993, 10 of the women who tested positive for cocaine filed suit within the U.S. District Court in attempt to claim that their rights to the Fourth Amendment had been violated. In the fall of 1989, MUSC began testing the urine of pregnant women suspected of cocaine use and, in some cases, reporting the results to law enforcement officials. Later, the policy was amended so those patients who tested positive were given a choice between being arrested and receiving drug treatment.

According to the article/news story, The Supreme Court in the past had allowed drug tests without a warrant or “individual suspicion” as long as the government could state and demonstrate a valid “special need”. This meaning that it had to be proven by the state that the policy was not established to help with law enforcement and that the people being searched have “a lower expectation of privacy”. According to today’s ruling though, even if drug testing of the woman is protect the unborn, if it is without the woman’s consent it can no longer be considered a “special need.” With this particular statement, it helps me realize even more how big of a social problem this is shaping out to be.

During the same day this article/news story was published, it was stated that there was a conference call that took place with one of the women who filed a claim against MUSC. She made the argument that she wasn’t aware of any other U.S. jurisdiction in where there are doctors who are, as stated by the article/news story; “working with police to obtain drug-abuse evidence on pregnant women.” The argument from city officials is that it was by no means meant to discriminate and/or violate in constitutional rights.

As I have stated before, I agree with the fact that drug-tests for pregnant women should be allowed, and that if the results come back positive they should have the options of: adoption, drug treatment, or jail. Even though the positive drug test results may help police case, like Scalia stated, I do believe it should always be primarily done for the well being of the mother and child. This is a social problem that has affected our world as a whole, even though this particular example took place in a hospital in South Carolina, it is clearly world-wide.