Abstract

A new assault on feminism

Critics of the punitive approach to pregnant drug and alcohol users point out the ironies inherent in treating a public health concern as a matter for the criminal justice system— the contradiction, for instance, of punishing addicted women when most drug treatment programs refuse to accept pregnant women. Judges order pregnant addicts to jail, but they don't order drug treatment programs to accept them, or Medicaid, which pays for heroin treatment, to cover crack addiction, let alone order landlords not to evict them, or obstetricians to take uninsured women as patients, or the federal government to fund fully the women, infants, and children supplemental feeding program, which reaches only two-thirds of those who are eligible.