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.
Why are hospitals drug-testing pregnant women without their consent?
Because in red states, cruelty is the point.
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.
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.
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.
That’s silly. 99% of the time, a drug addict is not fit to be a parent. Depending on the drug, even breastfeeding the baby will cause it to OD. It’s perfectly reasonable to get child services involved if the mother tests positive for illicit drugs.
Now, what’s ridiculous is getting child services involved because a patient tested positive to a drug you gave them, unless there’s other obvious signs of drug abuse.
That’s silly. 99% of the time, a drug addict is not fit to be a parent.
Do you include functioning alcoholics in that group, or just people who use the ‘bad’ drugs?
Yes, I do.
Your 99% of addicts stat is made up war on drugs bullshit by the way, and you clearly don’t know what a functioning alcoholic is if you think they can’t be parents.
For example some addicts are able to keep their shit together during work hours and evenings but use alcohol as a coping mechanism when their responsibilities are done. They are still addicts, but in their spare time.
A lot of other addicts are similar, addicted to pain meds or who use weed as a coping mechanism but outside of work and care hours.
When you have children, you don’t have spare time.
I really fear for the future of my female loved ones and women in this country in general. Will my older sister who is currently pregnant be subject to this violation of human rights? Will it also happen to my wife when we get around to having kids? Will my younger sister who is only in high school be forced to abandon her educational aspirations because of “societal pressure”? A revolution is in order.
Nearly half of them asked for this. It makes no sense.
Consider journalists have to sensationalize their reports. -It’s their bread and butter.
Medical professionals are mandated reporters. Their job and well being is on the line if they do not report. Blaming them and not the investigating bodies (if they’re even guilty) is ignorant and irresponsible.
I don’t think many mothers want responsibilities for infants when on and coming off the drugs either. Not knowing better while on them might have triggered some protective measures.
It’s good to consider situations before jumping the gun and getting people killed.
One of the considerations should be, “I just gave this person a drug and they tested positive afterwards.”
Unless there’s other evidence of active drug use, the only assumption should be that it’s positive because of the drugs you gave them.
It’s possible the form listed the drugs she was on, but the social worker didn’t know it was their job to figure out which results to ignore.
I’ve literally seen a Texas judge - who not only presumably court ordered drug tests regularly, but was also an ex-nurse - not understand how drug tests work. She assumed the lab would eliminate prescription-caused positives from the results. It took subpoenaing the tech who administered the test - a person in the same courthouse - to take the stand and tell the judge “we just list what the test found and what meds the person said they were taking, it’s someone else’s job to cross reference the two” before the judge stopped assuming the person on prescription Adderall was a meth head.
If an ex-nurse who deals with drug tests on a nearly daily basis doesn’t understand how they work, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if it turned out that a social worker misinterpreted the results similarly.
I’m sure they’re already working this out if it is even a real problem.
This is Texas we’re talking about here… of course they’re not going to work it out.
