Exploding Aardvark

You’re all officially second-class citizens now. Enjoy.

When it comes to drug- or alcohol-addicted expectant mothers, obviously the ideal way forward is for them to seek treatment. Even for the richest people, addiction is supremely difficult to tackle, but for those from the lowest socio-economic groups the depredations that have led to them becoming drug-users generally make it extremely hard for them to give up. In the current US climate, though, the punitive approach towards pregnant women — in which women have been dragged to prison cells, hours after giving birth to a healthy baby, still haemorrhaging but having tested positive for drugs — means that few are likely to seek treatment. Who would take that risk if it meant the possibility of prosecution, a jail term and your child being removed from your care?

The pregnancy police are watching you (Diane Taylor in the Guardian, via Mikhaela, whose comic ran in the print edition as an accompaniment to this article)

Previously ‘varked: