Nina Buckhalter__ of Mississippi gave birth to a stillborn baby girl, Hayley Jade in 2009, when she was 31 weeks into her pregnancy. Two months after the stillbirth, she was indited for manslaughter. You see, Nina had methanphetamines in her system at the time of the stillbirth and a grand jury in Lamar County, Mississippi says that the 29-year-old woman "did willfully, unlawfully, feloniously, kill Hayley Jade Buckhalter, a human being, by culpable negligence."
Read more ¿Qué más?: Young woman dies after hospital denies her life-saving abortion
Some things are wrong and we just know they are. Taking illegal drugs while pregnant is most certainly wrong. I'm pretty sure no one would deny that is improper behavior, not even the pregnant woman taking the drugs and still it happens because addictions are well, addictions.
You should know that the cause of a stillbirth or miscarriage is difficult to determine. Many experts say that there is no conclusive proof that drug use during pregnancy can cause a stillbirth or miscarriage. Still we know it is wrong.
If prosecutors prevail in the case against Nina Buckhalter, they will be setting a crazy scary precedent. It's what I would call a slippery slope. It would mean that anytime there was a miscarriage for any reason, women could be investigated and prosecuted for potential causes. So let's say a pregnant woman exercises against doctor's orders and has a miscarriage: she could be prosecuted even though it can't be proven definitively that exercise is what caused the miscarriage. Or say someone has gestational diabetes, or hypertension, or they are obese and they have a miscarriage; they could be prosecuted if they weren't perfect about following diet restrictions or other medical advice. Or what if you eat deli meats or unpasteurized cheese, or…the list goes on and on. I think we all know that is wrong.
It all just smacks of a backdoor method of establishing personhood for fetuses and thereby making legal abortions even more difficult to get in a state that is already one of the most anti-abortion states in the country.
The State Supreme Court is expected to rule soon if prosecution can go forward. I hope they rule against it because the reasoning behind it is faulty and we all know that faulty reasoning can lead to a slippery slope.
Image via hubRsen/Flickr
