Ah drats! Based on your answers, the State has decided that you do not fit their criteria for a good mother. What’s more, by their standard, your pregnancy is a danger to the order of society, and should be treated as a crime.

 

You are probably thinking, “wait a second, this can’t just be a result of my individual choices.” And you’re right! It’s racism! The last four decades or so have seen a multiplication of cases where the criminal justice system has penalized pregnancy in ways that disproportionately involve certain demographics -- specifically poorer black women. And even if you yourself are well off, or even if you have never participated in illicit activities, the state’s profiling of black women puts you at a substantially higher risk for these penalties. 

 

Here are some of the ways you may find that the state disproportionately criminalizes pregnant black women: 

 

• Disproportionately charging pregnant black women with use of drugs, despite their substance abuse rates not necessarily differing from that of their white counterparts. The most common penalty for mother’s prenatal drug use is temporary removal of the baby. 

 

• Charging black women particularly on crack cocaine charges, especially considering the negligent effects of crack cocaine on fetal health. Early studies on “crack babies” were methodologically flawed, because their effects could have likely been caused by uncontrolled factors like poverty, homelessness, malnourishment, abuse, use of alcohol/other drugs, and lack of prenatal care, rather than crack exclusively. The effects of crack are shown to be less harmful compared to other less penalized drugs such as alcohol. And while, obviously, crack isn’t good for anyone, studies show that its consequences can be negated with proper prenatal care. 

 

• Cooperating with medical facilities, instituting surveillance and breaching your sense of trust in the medical system. Testing of infant toxicologies, which is then reported to the government, is done almost entirely in public hospitals serving poor minority communities. Many hospitals have no formal screening procedures, relying on hospital staff who have “reasonable cause to suspect” someone of drug use -- so even if you are not a drug user, the media’s dominant image of the Black “crack mother” puts you at high risk for profiling.   

 

Don’t let the state fool you -- if they truly cared about the harms of maternal drug use, they would do more to invest in drug rehabilitation and treatment. Instead, the frequent and arbitrary incarceration of pregnant black women leaves their babies to gestate in the horrible conditions of prison. Because it isn’t your drug use being criminalized during pregnancy. It is your right to choose to be pregnant in the first place.