South Carolina Coalition for Healthy Families

There is great consensus in the medical community that maternal health care – care provided during pregnancy and postpartum – is critical to the health of women and their babies. Unfortunately, many women do not have access to quality healthcare. Specifically, substance abusing pregnant women are not given access to quality healthcare, including counseling services. Instead, these women are criminalized – and their health and the health of their unborn child is compromised.

Our Position on Maternal Health

The South Carolina Coalition for Healthy Families believes that all women, including substance abusing women, should have access to good quality health care throughout their pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum period. We oppose the criminalization of substance abusing pregnant women; we believe that prosecuting women for drug use during pregnancy will only deter women from seeking prenatal care.

Why Access to Maternal Health Matters

While no one would argue that substance abuse is not good for an unborn fetus, the effects of denying a substance abusing pregnant woman access to quality healthcare or separating the child from its mother can be even more devastating.

In South Carolina, viable fetuses are legal persons and pregnant women who use illegal drugs or engage in any other behavior that jeopardizes the fetus can be prosecuted as child abusers or murderers. More often than not, these laws will separate mothers and children. Moreover, the women, because of their criminal status, will likely be imprisoned and denied the quality healthcare and drug treatment needed. This is particularly the case in South Carolina which spends fewer state dollars on drug treatment than any other state.

Decades of research have shown that drug treatment is successful. In addition, drug treatment costs less money than imprisonment and is not destructive to families and children. In fact, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the cost of effective treatment ranges from $1,800 to $6,800 annually while the cost of incarceration, without the additional costs of foster care, probation, parole and prison building, is as much as $20,000 annually. South Carolina, however, has chosen to punish drug abusing pregnant women.

Threats to Maternal Health

In South Carolina, access to quality maternal health care is greatly threatened by laws that do not take into consideration the needs of all women, including substance abusing women whose health is even more compromised. In addition, the lack of publicly-funded and/or affordable healthcare threatens access to quality maternal health for all. Learn more.