Jennifer Johnson: Maternal Drug Use and Fetal Rights

Week 8 Ethics Assignment
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Jennifer Johnson: Maternal Drug Use and Fetal Rights
Introduction
The use of drugs such as cocaine by a mother or a pregnant woman can severely impact the child's health. It usually poses not only a health question but also an ethical one. The fetus deserves a chance to grow into a healthy human being, which doesn't depend on its ability to consent to the same. They deserve the right to be protected by their mothers until a time or an age where they can now decide for themselves. Women who use illegal drugs that might harm their fetuses face legal repercussions since this is and should be taken as a criminal offense. On the side of the hospitals, therefore, it is not a violation of women’s privacy rights when hospitals regularly perform drug tests on pregnant women suspected to be abusing certain drugs.
Bioethics is often a tightrope for most professionals, both in the medical and legal fields (Beauchamp et al., 2014). Pregnant women will always have their selected healthcare institutions where they go for checkups and even delivery. These institutions are, therefore, directly in charge of the woman's and the child's health. Hence, when an issue arises, the second entity to be questioned would be the hospital. As initially noted, it is criminal for an expectant woman to use illegal drugs that might harm the fetus's health. To avoid any legal responsibility, therefore, it is prudent for hospitals to regularly perform drug tests on pregnant women suspected to be abusing certain drugs and document it. Cocaine-affected babies have to undergo expensive medical care for them to recover. Furthermore, the damage caused to children born to mothers abusing drugs undergoes a lot of pain and calls for regular drug testing on pregnant women.
There is a need to understand the stakes involved in this case. This especially concerns understanding the fetus, child abuse, and intentional irresponsibility or cruelty from a guardian. The fetus has long been a source of debate about whether or not to be taken as a legal person. Herring (2021) notes that it is a legal person given that it brings forth life, and depending on the stage of development, it can constitute a serious legal and ethical consideration. It amounts to child abuse for a mother to abuse drugs when pregnant. It is worth noting that Jennifer’s other children were also cocaine-affected babies, indicating that she is causing harm to her children. She is intentionally irresponsible with her kids. This indicates a pattern and a tendency to cause harm to these children, ...