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submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world

Amairani Salinas was 32 weeks pregnant with her fourth child in 2023 when doctors at a Texas hospital discovered that her baby no longer had a heartbeat. As they prepped her for an emergency cesarean section, they gave her midazolam, a benzodiazepine commonly prescribed to keep patients calm. A day later, the grieving mother was cradling her stillborn daughter when a social worker stopped by her room to deliver another devastating blow: Salinas was being reported to child welfare authorities

What happened to Salinas and Villanueva are far from isolated incidents. Across the country, hospitals are dispensing medications to patients in labor, only to report them to child welfare authorities when they or their newborns test positive for those very same substances on subsequent drug tests, an investigation by The Marshall Project and Reveal has found.

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[-] Limonene@lemmy.world 125 points 1 month ago

Why are hospitals drug-testing pregnant women without their consent?

[-] cdf12345@lemm.ee 122 points 1 month ago

Because in red states, cruelty is the point.

[-] NatakuNox@lemmy.world 15 points 1 month ago

Yup. Can't let beds in the for profit prisons go cold. Other wise the prisons CEO might have to spend only 199 days on vacation instead of the customary 200.

[-] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 81 points 1 month ago

The article mentions it... TL;DR: War on Drugs

Hospital drug testing of pregnant women, which began in the 1980s and spread rapidly during the opioid epidemic, was intended in part to help identify babies who might experience withdrawal symptoms and need extra medical care. Federal law requires hospitals to alert child welfare agencies anytime such babies are born. But a previous investigation by The Marshall Project and Reveal found that the relatively inexpensive, pee-in-a-cup tests favored by many hospitals are highly susceptible to false positives, errors and misinterpretation — and many hospitals have failed to put in place safeguards that would protect patients from being reported over faulty test results.

[-] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 63 points 1 month ago

was intended in part to help identify babies who might experience withdrawal symptoms

That was the stated reason to get public buy in. The real reason was the same as the rest of the war on drugs, to keep black people incarcerated so slavery can continue per the 14th amendment.

[-] Darrell_Winfield@lemmy.world 20 points 1 month ago

Lol, yeah, that started reason doesn't hold up well. Your basic urine drug screen (UDS) will flag benzos (midazolam in this article), natural opiates (not fentanyl and those derivatives), cocaine, barbiturates, marijuana, amphetamines, and I think that's it. The only ones likely to cause fetal withdrawal are benzos and opiates. Works well enough for benzos, but withdrawals are pretty rare. The most common are opiates, but the most common opiates won't show up on the UDS. So why use it?

[-] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Citations Needed did an episode on the crack baby moral panic, but couldn't find it now.

Edit: I think it was this one but I'm not entirely sure:
Citations Needed: Episode 39: From Cradle to Courtroom: How The Media Stacks the Deck Against “Defendants”

Episode webpage: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/citationsneeded/CN39_20180606_live_court_watch_nyc.mp3

[-] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Yeah, there was no crack baby epidiemic for starters...

[-] Chip_Rat@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

Citations needed uses heavy sarcasm. Though I don't recall the episode, I'm 100% they are highlighting the fact that there was not.

[-] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 5 points 1 month ago

They talked about that, how the article that started the panic had to be retracted, but it didn't mattered at that point

[-] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

As tends to be the case with racist fearmongering.

[-] nucleative@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago
[-] StaticFalconar@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

Its not a catch all thing to hide behind.

[-] Kraiden@kbin.earth 7 points 1 month ago

Honestly, it's much of a muchness, but for the sake of accuracy: It was the fetus that was tested, not the mother

this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2024
445 points (98.9% liked)

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