Big Bad Dad ~ The Film

pH Films presents
A Ruth van Vierzen & Patrick Hodgson PRODUCTION



Starring DOUG EDMONDSON, LLOYD GORLING, DOUG HOPE, BARBARA KAY,
DAVE NASH, FRANK SIMONS and
DENIS VAN DECKER and his band of F4J SUPERHEROES



Questions, Comments, Ideas... Please feel free to email the producers at info@bigbaddadthemovie.com







http://www.bigbaddadthemovie.com/index.html

Divorced B.C. father kept from seeing child

In the article from the CBC below Mr. Geesing has done the right thing by taking this matter public. For many years courts have given sole physical custody to moms (90% in Canada).  Possession of children is not 9/10's of the law it is 10/10's. When mom has the kids she directly controls dad and often in a very twisted manner using the children as pawns. The courts will not enforce access. Mom's know this, as do lawyers, and use it as leverage.

The courts and the lawyers are picking the pockets of vulnerable families including the child's future financial integrity, and will not change without public knowledge and intervention.

It is a gamble because courts tend to use it against the parent who does go public. They do not believe it is in the "child's best interest". It will be if enough men go public, and we number in the tens of thousands, so men get involved and support Billl C-422 for equal shared parenting. Lawyers do not like this bill because it will reduce their business and they intimidated Rob Nicholson, the conservative member for Niagara, and Canada's Federal Justice Minister, at their annual general meeting in Ireland in 2009 so much he said he didn't support it.

Think about this for a minute. The Canadian Bar Association represent lawyers across Canada. They are a lobby group. Nicholson is a member of this group. He is also the Minister responsible for the creation and administration of Canadian Law. Bill C-422 will reduce divorce and lawyer's income. Isn't there something ethically wrong with this? 

A few Human Rights Complaints against government policies and bureaucrats down the road will help to steer the ship into more equal waters as the system, whether it be DV or Family Law to name just two, is way out of whack in favour of the feminist mythology that dads and men are just plain bad.MJM  

June 22, 2010

By CBC News
CBC News

A divorced B.C. father who hasn't seen his daughter for months blames the family court system and is joining others in a call for change.

A divorced B.C. father who hasn't seen his young daughter for several months blames the family court system and is joining others in a call for change.



"Before all this happened, my daughter had a great relationship with me," said Dieter Geesing. "I feel really helpless. This is not right."


Geesing said his ex-wife has been allowed to bar him from his daughter because a court order requiring her to co-operate is unenforceable.


"I love my child. It's not fair to her. You are cheating her of her childhood," he said tearfully. "This child has a right to interact with her father."


Geesing is a forestry specialist and his daughter is his only child. He and his wife separated in 2008, when the girl was eight years old. Since then, he said, his wife has tried to shut him out of his daughter's life completely.

No contact for 15 months

 

"When I phone, I get the message 'She doesn't want to talk to you,'" said Geesing. "On her 10th birthday, I left flowers on her doorstep - that's it."


Geesing has had no contact with his child since March 2009.


A court order in June 2009 gave the parents joint guardianship, with the child's "primary residence" at her mother's home.


The court also instructed the mother to pay for and attend counselling to help establish a "healthier" relationship between father and daughter. A letter from the counsellor to the judge shows Geesing's ex-wife has since failed to co-operate.



"For me it's quite obvious here is somebody who doesn't want this child to have any contact," said Geesing.


Records show there have been no consequences for the child's mother. Geesing has been told he has no legal recourse but to go back to court to ask the judge for help, which could take several months.

No comment from mother

 

Because she is the custodial parent, CBC News is not identifying the mother by name, to help protect the child's identity. When contacted, Geesing's ex-wife refused comment. Her lawyer did not respond to messages.


Geesing is one of several parents and family advocates calling on Ottawa to change the Divorce Act to give non-abusive divorcing parents automatic, equal roles in their children's lives.


"Why am I supposed to be the lesser parent?" asked Geesing. "The default [in the courts] should be equal, shared parenting. That should be the default."


When Geesing's divorce case got to trial, the child's mother wrongly accused him of inappropriate behaviour toward his daughter.


"It completely went out of control," said Geesing. "Nothing shook me as much as this accusation."

Ice cream photos called 'inappropriate'

 

Evidence of what Geesing's ex-wife deemed inappropriate included pictures he took of his daughter showing off her first permanent teeth and pictures of her eating an ice cream cone.


B.C. Supreme Court Justice Burnyeat concluded, "Having reviewed the photographs that the plaintiff believes were inappropriate, I cannot reach that conclusion."


The mother also said it was wrong for Geesing to playfully nibble on his daughter's ear while they were watching a DVD together.


The judge didn't buy that either, concluding, "I am satisfied that the plaintiff overreacted to what might be viewed by many as an innocent sign of affection between a father and his daughter."


A detailed psychological analysis of the family found no evidence the child had been abused, but concluded instead that the mother had alienated her from her father. It also recommended that if the mother didn't change her behaviour, the child should live with her father.


"[The mother] has been using control as a coping mechanism of ...perverse anxiety," wrote the psychologist. "There has clearly been a campaign of parental alienation."


"All of this court, this fighting, for nothing," said Geesing.

Access denial 'common'

 

"I know fathers who have been to court 50 times - in front of a judge - only to be told that they will get access but they do not," said Jerry Arthur-Wong, the executive director at Vancouver's only men's resource centre.


"It's like the court appearance had no impact on the other parent."


He said the extreme problems he sees are with the minority of protracted, acrimonious divorces, where the parents go all the way to trial to fight it out.


A 2009 study by Edward Kruk at the University of B.C.'s school of social work took a detailed look at the parental roles of 82 Vancouver-area fathers, from all walks of life, post-divorce.


Of the 82, 56 reported "lack of access" as their No. 1 problem. Thirty of the 82 fathers reported being completely disengaged from their children's lives.


Arthur-Wong also wants the Divorce Act amended to make equal, shared parenting the norm, except in cases where one parent is deemed unfit.


Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott is sponsoring a private member's bill that would make shared parenting the starting position in all cases that go to court. The bill passed first reading, but won't be debated in Ottawa for several months, if at all.

Government undecided on bill

 

A spokesperson for Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said he wasn't available for comment and the government has not decided whether to support the initiative.


"Our government is committed to promoting positive outcomes for the entire family during separation or divorce," wrote Nicholson's press secretary, Pamela Stephens. "Since parents usually understand their children better than anyone else, our government strongly encourages parents co-operate to make parenting arrangements in their children's best interests."


Arthur-Wong said the government has delayed taking definitive action for far too long.


"Denial of access is pretty common," he said. "That is child abuse and that is not acceptable in this society."
He thinks provinces should set up registries of parents who ignore court-ordered access, similar to the maintenance enforcement agencies that penalize parents who default on child-support payments.


"Those who say that it would be impossible to keep a registry of access denial, I say let's try it with the more extreme cases," he said.


Geesing doesn't expect to get another court date until the fall.


"I don't even know what I will do the first time, if I ever see her," said Geesing. "Should I shake her hand? Give her my business card or something like this? What do I do? I feel afraid to do anything."


Even if he doesn't see his daughter until she grows up, Geesing said he hopes by seeing him tell his story publicly, she will know one day that he tried to be a good father.


"I think I owe it to her to let her know that this is wrong."

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/06/21/bc-accessdenied.html#socialcomments

Family Law creates a form of Gender Denigration and Gender Apartheid

The whole idea of dead beat dads, discussed in the National Post story below, is a work of fiction created through feminist advocacy and in North America the collection of child support is a multibillion dollar industry. In the USA it is centered around a highly gender biased act called the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and Joe Biden is its patriarch. Bill Clinton passed it back in the 90’s to pay back his feminist voters,. It is control central for the unconstitutional discrimination of males within the sphere of family law. The federal government pays the States incentives for collecting child support. If they collect, more money flows downward. Thus States have every incentive to be as draconian as possible.

Most men, upwards of 70%, cannot pay because they are poor. They are deprived of passports and license to drive. That can impact, as Mr. Gurney has described, his ability to earn income. They are then sent to debtor’s prison, where they cannot work to pay it off. After getting out, sometimes after 6 months, but in at least one case involving alimony, over 10 years, they are further behind because the arrears clock never stops. Men have an 8 times higher suicide rate over women after divorce. Often it is because they see no way out. They lost their children, their savings on lawyers, their dignity, their freedom and then their life. In addition, we say we don’t have capital punishment in Canada. Eight men a day die by their own hand. What a disgrace, but we get hyperactive if the flu hits and a few die a week. Both are tragic but men are expendable. Some Provinces and States use public forums to humiliate them by posting pictures and descriptions. This is the modern equivalent of putting people in stocks for public viewing and throwing things at them.

Lawyers and courts tout the unknowable “Best interests of Children” in their pompous and often kangaroo courts. Sure, they do - and I have a time share on Mars with running water. The above actions to dads are not in the best interest of any child, or any one else, but it keeps Judges, lawyers and their apparatchiks employed in a lucrative business.

You will hear of very few women being thrown in jail for child support arrears even though proportionately they are less likely to pay than men are. Further, you will seldom ever see them put in jail for denying access or alienating a child from dad. Moms get physical custody 90% of the time so there are many dads acting as ATM's for the divorce industry. Mom gets to control her ex in a myriad of fashions during and after the divorce process, aided and abetted by the machinery of the government, NGO’s (DV shelters), lawyers and most definitely judges who are the CEO’s of gender apartheid in this country. Politicians don’t have a clue what they have created and even if they piped up some feminist group funded by Status of Women Canada will chew them up in a maelstrom of shrieking rhetoric suggesting the government is abandoning women for male privilege aided by the likes of Jack Layton (Canada's Chief Socialist and feminist sycophant) and Iggenstein, (Michael Iggnatief - Canada's hapless  Liberal leader). Heck, you even have Tasha Kheiriddin an op-ed writer, and lawyer doing it at the NP against a bill for equal parenting, C-422, just before Father’s Day. She claims to be conservative but that clearly is a misprint. She is, if anything, a maternal supremacist, and if not liberal a Red-Tory who are Liberals who think they are conservative but don't know any better.MJM

Matt Gurney: Man jailed by courts after courts bankrupt him

Matt Gurney  June 21, 2010 – 2:12 pm

 

Jeff Dolan spent Father’s Day in jail, locked away for failure to pay child support. Deadbeat dads don’t garner a lot of sympathy. But you don’t need to study Jeff’s case for long before you realize that he’s anything but a deadbeat. Instead, he’s a man hopelessly ensnared in a crushing bureaucratic machine: He’s in jail because he couldn’t pay child support, but he couldn’t pay child support because he was unemployed … and he was unemployed because the court took his driver’s license for failure to pay child support … after he went bankrupt paying his court costs.

There is no good news in this story, but there is some dark irony. Jeff, who despite a learning disability graduated high school and held down several construction jobs in his home state of Minnesota, was also a volunteer at a local sexual violence crisis centre. One of his jobs there, on top of fielding telephone calls from sexual assault survivors, was to talk to high school classes. One thing he taught was “male privilege” — the notion that society favours men in many varied, sometimes subtle ways, thus enabling sexual violence.
Jeff is living proof that if there is such a thing as male privilege, it is doled out unevenly.

Jeff’s saga began five years ago, when a slowdown in Minnesota’s economy saw his employment opportunities dry up. After travelling to Texas to work in the oil industry, Jeff returned to his wife and two sons only to be served with a restraining order. His wife was claiming that Jeff was himself an abuser. Jeff’s lawyer urged him to immediately file for divorce, warning him that such orders are used by women as a “silver bullet” to ensure swift, favourable divorce proceedings. Jeff’s lawyer proved prescient, and he spent the next several years both seeking to prove that he was not an abuser and to get equal custody of his sons. It would be hard enough to argue for custody when facing abuse allegations at the best of time; Jeff actually had to do so before the same judge. Though the abuse allegations were ultimately set aside (two psychiatric profiles showed that he was not abusive), the damage was done — Jeff had lost equal custody, had gone deep into debt fighting two legal battles at once and had a nervous breakdown. By the time he was well enough to work, the world’s economy was in chaos, and there were no jobs.

But Jeff didn’t quit. He found new work, and could make good money billing by the hour. All he had to do was drive to the appointments, and he’d be able to pay down debt and meet his child support obligations. Enter the courts — since he had fallen behind on his obligations, the court stripped him of his driver’s license. That caused him to be unable to work. He fell further behind in his payments, and now he’s in jail. He can’t get his license back until he’s employed and making payments again, but he can’t find work because he does not have a valid license and now, must declare on job applications that he’s served jail time.

It’s a complete Catch-22, an utterly Kafka-esque nightmare from which there is no escape. The courts have left only one avenue open to Jeff to regain his freedom, financial independence and his children, while simultaneously making it impossible for him to do those very things. If anyone ever needed a heaping helping of male privilege, certainly, it must be Jeff Dolan.

Jeff is just one man, but speaks to a broader problem. Courts, in their earnest efforts to do right by families, are destroying them, instead. Men, who want only the chance to be good fathers, are crushed under the weight of gender-biased default rulings and the inertia of unfeeling bureaucracies. Whether in far-off Minnesota or, as Post columnist Barbara Kay has shown time and again, right here in Canada, men fighting custody battles are outgunned from the start. Jeff’s story, of being forced into bankruptcy by family court proceedings and then being jailed by those same courts for not being able to pay their court-mandated payments, is no surprise to any number of Canadian dads.

Bill Levy, a Canadian with bitter personal experience in such matters said it best: “Canada has reopened debtor prisons, only for parents. Only alienated parents go to jail for poverty. No Mastercard or mortgage debtors. The Constitution does not permit this, we can’t be forced into servitude. And yet no one will stand up in court and make these arguments. Men, and some women, too, can’t fight back against the court’s preference for expediency.” That mirrors what Jeff’s brother Jon told me in a phone interview: “Jeff isn’t in jail because he’s an abuser or a bad father. He’s in jail because he’s poor in a bad economy where there are no jobs.”

You can take any number of harsh lessons from Jeff’s tale, or those that Ms. Kay has chronicled in the Post time and again, but the overriding one must be how helpless parents — usually fathers — are in the face of an inflexible family court system that gives no leeway or understanding to those trapped in its clutches.
National Post

You can read more about Jeff, and his family’s efforts to help him, at their blog.

Read more: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/06/21/matt-gurney-man-jailed-by-courts-after-courts-bankrupt-him/#ixzz0rduZiPZ6

No bias in this study ~ Lesbian Mothers Think Their Children are All Above Average

The National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS) study quoted in the story below has an agenda and we have had some Female Chauvinist Pigs, like Pamela Paul, doing articles in magazines like Atlantic describing the maternal superiority of Lesbians over - get this - heterosexual couples.  So they are not only better  than normal moms, who are also women but the underlying theme is dads are not necessary. If they said that about a racial minority they would be castigated by the media rather than the useful idiots of the MSM parroting the studies results as though it was factual. Studies show that as many as a third or more of lesbians have been victims of sexual assault, including rape,  or coercion at the hands of another woman.  Others show the rate of abusiveness between same sex females cohabiting is higher than heterosexual DV.  Additionally, single moms are the most likely to kill or abuse their children and Lesbians see more frequent breakups and they are less stable which is mentioned in the study. Paul, the maternal supremacist, fails to mention this.

This study conducted in Bejing isn't directly relevant but it is instructive in what is happening in Communist China, "The survey, funded by the Anti-Domestic Violence Network of the China Law Society (ADVN), an NGO founded in 2000 to protect women's rights, found 75 percent of lesbian and bisexual women in Beijing were victims of domestic violence." 

In this report a psychology professor Carolyn West "found estimates of lesbian domestic abuse ranging anywhere from 8.5 to 73 percent but says that in most studies 30 to 40 percent of lesbians reported they'd been in a violent relationship. The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, a gay and lesbian advocacy group, estimates based on the sparse research available that domestic violence occurs in 25 to 33 percent of same-sex couples."

Needless  to say the NLLFS study is not to be taken seriously and those authors who are touting it have a clear agenda. Female superiority in the care of children and dads are unnecessary.  What does that say about their cousins Gay men raising children. Are they twice as unnecessary.  These supremacists do no favours to their very small same sex, relative to normal couples, community.

A very in depth study goes into great detail about homosexual marriages 

Some snippets:

Gay and lesbian vs. other opposite-sex intimate partner relationships
Surveys conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice confirm that homosexual and lesbian relationships had a far greater incidence of domestic partner violence than opposite-sex relationships including cohabitation or marriage.

·  The National Violence against Women Survey, sponsored by the National Institute of Justice, found that "same-sex cohabitants reported significantly more intimate partner violence than did opposite-sex cohabitants. Thirty-nine percent of the same-sex cohabitants reported being raped, physically assaulted, and/or stalked by a marital/cohabitating partner at some time in their lifetimes, compared to 21.7 percent of the opposite-sex cohabitants. Among men, the comparable figures are 23.1 percent and 7.4 percent."[50]

Source: "Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence," U.S. Department of Justice: Office of Justice Programs, 30.

The study further charts specic rates of DV compared to married men/women compared to homosexuals.

Homosexual and Lesbian Couples vs. Married Couples

When homosexual and lesbian relationships are directly compared with married couples, the difference in the domestic partner violence is pronounced:

Sources: "Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence," U.S. Department of Justice: Office of Justice Programs: 30; "Intimate Partner Violence," Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report:11.

And they posit the following:

A POLITICAL AGENDA: REDEFINING MARRIAGE

By their own admission, gay activists are not simply interested in making it possible for homosexuals and lesbians to partake of conventional married life. Rather, they aim to change the essential character of marriage, removing precisely the aspects of fidelity and chastity that promote stability in the relationship and the home.MJM

Janice Shaw Crouse

Saturday, June 19, 2010

The National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS) just published in the online edition of the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and funded by the Gill Foundation and the Lesbian Health Fund of the Gay Lesbian Medical Association, claims that children of lesbian mothers do better than children from a married-mom-and-dad family. The AAP is no stranger to controversy; they are the pediatrics group that recently capitulated to political-correctness to advocate a “less extreme” form of female genital mutilation and then, when under pressure, reversed their recommendation.  The NLLFS study professes to be a highly respected, peer-reviewed “longitudinal” type of study.  Longitudinal studies, however, are conducted by researchers who objectively track subjects over a long period of time. In this study, the children were evaluated by their lesbian birth mothers — hardly disinterested, dispassionate researchers.

The hype for the study was remarkable, with over 116 newspaper headlines blaring the news: “Children of lesbian couples do well.”  Few of the articles questioned the fact that the children’s mothers were reporting on their “little darling’s” well-being, social functioning, behavior, and achievements; nor did publications usually note the lack of cross-checking with objective outcomes.  Not mentioned, as well, is that over half of the original lesbian-couple participants in the study were separated by the time their children were age six (mean age), though such family upheaval is typically quite difficult for children.  Nor did the laudatory reports question the fact that the 78 children in the study contributed their own assessments about their lives and well-being.  Without comparing these personal observations with objective outcomes (teacher/counselor evaluations, school report cards, etc.) the study is highly unreliable.

The study is neither objective nor comprehensive.  There are three major problems with the “study”:

1)      The “research” consists of the mothers’ opinions about their children;

2)      Only 77 lesbian couples participated in the “study,” and they were not typical parents in other regards. An earlier NLLFS report described the sample population as Caucasian (93 percent), predominantly college educated (67 percent), mostly middle and upper class (82 percent), professional or managers (85 percent) and a median household income of $85,000; and,

3)      the study did not consist of a random sample — all the participants were volunteers — recruited via posted announcements in women’s bookstores, at lesbian events, and in lesbian newspapers in three major metropolitan areas (Boston, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco)

The personal relationships and professional affiliations of the authors engender even more questions about the study’s reliability.  Dr. Nanette Gartrell of the University of California, San Francisco, is “married” to Dee Moshbacker, Ph.D., a psychiatrist and lesbian activist/filmmaker.  She lamented that “there are so many places in the United States where same-sex couples are not allowed to adopt or foster children in need.”

Yet, she claims, “There is not a single study that has shown there are any problems in terms of psychological adjustment” [of the children in lesbian couple households].  The other author, Dr. Henny M.W. Bos, is an assistant professor in Amsterdam whose research focuses on “child rearing and child development in non traditional families, such as planned lesbian families, gay father families and patchwork families.”

The two authors send a message that children of lesbians fare better than the children of a married mom and dad.  They state at the outset, “Despite more than three decades of cross-sectional research demonstrating that the psychological adjustment of children is unrelated to their parents’ sexual orientation, the legitimacy of lesbian and gay biological, foster, and adoptive parenting is still under scrutiny.”  A close reading of the Pediatrics article reveals a broader agenda promoting donor insemination, praising female parenting in contrast to having a father present, and, typically, condemning straight society as homophobic — a disproportionate amount of attention is given to descriptions of the children’s negative experiences related to their parents’ sexual preference (but the harassment didn’t affect their well-being, you understand).

 Some critics are concerned that the Gartrell/Bos study will be used, not to praise lesbian couples, but to question the fitness of fathers.  Indeed, Gartrell/Bos note, “Lesbian mothers use less corporal punishment and less power assertion than heterosexual fathers.”  The authors assert the benefits of a feminine environment, “Growing up in households with less power assertion and more parental involvement has been shown to be associated with healthier psychological adjustment.”

Still other critics pointed out the weaknesses in the control group — the 93 children who were used for comparison.  They described the control group as “very different in race composition, socio-economic status of participants, and region of the country.”  They also noted that there are many more minorities and Southern children in the control group than in the NLLFS study group.  These critics questioned the editorial board and peer reviewers “who did not pay attention to such an obvious deficiency in the study.”

Others questioned the “enormous political incentive” for lesbian mothers to volunteer their participation.  There can be no doubt as to the “political incentive” of the “research.”  The authors make their purpose plain by concluding, “This study has implications for the clinical care of lesbian families, for the expert testimony provided by pediatricians on lesbian mother custody, and for public policies concerning same-sex parenting.”

In spite of the weaknesses in the methodology, the authors conclude with a vast generalization, “The NLLFS adolescents are well-adjusted, demonstrating more competencies and fewer behavioral problems than their peers in the normative American population.”

 

Clearly, these lesbian mothers are from Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average.

Copyright © 2010 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
http://townhall.com/columnists/JaniceShawCrouse/2010/06/19/lesbian_mothers_think_their_children_are_all_above_average?page=full&comments=true

In Kentucky ~ Court says pregnant women can’t be charged for taking drugs

It shows the hypocrisy of the law and the inroads feminism has made on the cojones of male legislators.

If any adult addicted a child to a controlled substance they would be charged and jailed and the wrath of public opinion would descend upon them.

Pregnant women, in this case, who have no common sense, deliberately harm their child through self aware activities and we say don’t prosecute her, the child is just collateral damage. In other words mom to be is but a child and may not seek help if the threat of jail is in play. How utterly simplistic and dangerous is such an attitude.

Single moms are the largest predators of children born in the USA through murder and abuse. The state is condoning these unborn children to future threats. If she doesn’t give a crap before the child is born she sure isn’t going to improve after.MJM

Posted By Beth Musgrave On June 17, 2010 @ 12:43 pm In KY Courts, KY General Assembly, State Government |

By Beth Musgrave - bmusgrave@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — Women can not be criminally charged for abusing alcohol or drugs during pregnancy, the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled Thursday in a case that has generated national attention.

In a 5-2 decision, the court ruled that the state’s Maternal Health Act of 1992 expressly precludes women from being charged with crimes if they ingest drugs or alcohol during pregnancy.

At issue is whether police and prosecutors were correct in charging Ina Cochran with first-degree wanton endangerment after she gave birth to a child who tested positive for cocaine in 2005.

Cochran’s lawyer moved to have the charges dismissed and a Casey Circuit Court judge agreed. Prosecutors appealed to the state Court of Appeals, which ruled that the charges should be allowed under Kentucky law.

Lawyers for Cochran had argued that the General Assembly also made it clear in 2004 that women should not be prosecuted for harming their unborn children. 

That year, lawmakers passed a fetal homicide statute, which allowed prosecution of a third party for killing an unborn child. In the bill, lawmakers said a pregnant woman could not be charged with harming her unborn child.

The court, in its opinion, wrote that it was clear that the legislature never intended pregnant women to be charged. “It is the legislature, not the judiciary, that has the power to designate what is a crime,” the opinion said.

The Maternal Health Act of 1992 states that “punitive actions taken against pregnant alcohol or substance abusers would create additional problems, including discouraging these individuals from seeking the essential prenatal care.”

But in a dissenting opinion, Justice Daniel Venters said the General Assembly never intended to create a blanket immunity for pregnant women. Venters also noted that Cochran was not charged while she was pregnant.

“Because the indictment came after her baby was born, it in no way discouraged her from seeking prenatal care and it in no way deterred her from treatment she might need to deliver a healthy baby,” Venters said.

Chief Justice John D. Minton was the other dissenting justice.

The case has garnered national attention from women’s rights groups and national medical associations, who say criminalizing drug abuse of a pregnant mother will only damage the child.

Women who think they might be prosecuted for drug addiction will not seek prenatal care, might abort their children for fear of being prosecuted or will not deliver their children in a hospital, they argue.

But many police officers, prosecutors and even family members of addicted mothers have argued that more should be done to deter pregnant women from causing lasting and sometimes debilitating damage to their children.

Larry Cleveland, the Commonwealth Attorney for Franklin County, has two cases pending against women who ingested alcohol or drugs during their pregnancy. Cleveland said Thursday that he had not seen the court’s opinion but would follow the court’s opinion and likely drop those charges.
“We will follow the decision,” Cleveland said. “Even if it means that the state will have to pay for care for these children for the rest of their lives.”

Rep. Richard Henderson, D-Jeffersonville, filed a bill in this year’s legislative session that would have allowed women to be charged with substance endangerment of a child — a felony — if the child is born with alcohol or unprescribed controlled substances in his or her system.

Henderson’s bill was given a hearing after he amended the measure to change the charge to a misdemeanor but the proposal was never called for a vote.

Henderson said he will likely file the proposal again next year.

“The bill will resurface in some form,” Henderson said. “I am a firm believer that we need to get treatment for these woman … but there is a place for the criminal justice system.

“This is not Roe vs. Wade. This is about protecting lives that are already beyond those choices,” Henderson said. “My intent is not to penalize the woman but to protect the child.”

---

Article printed from Bluegrass Politics: http://bluegrasspolitics.bloginky.com

URL to article: http://bluegrasspolitics.bloginky.com/2010/06/17/pregnant-women-can-not-be-charged-for-taking-drugs/

Fathers 4 Justice UK ~ ANTHEM FOR JUSTICE "SEND A MESSAGE OF LOVE"

Fathers 4 Justice UK

ANTHEM FOR JUSTICE "SEND A MESSAGE OF LOVE" AVAILABLE NOW TO BUY - F4J UK are delighted to announce that the Anthem For Justice "Send A Message Of Love" is available now to buy and download for 99p through PayPal  or through the F4J UK  website. Thank you so much to everyone who made this record happen - and it is especially for your children.

This is a nice anthem for dads on Fathers Day