this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2024
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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 160 points 1 month ago (22 children)

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

[–] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 99 points 1 month ago (16 children)

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 73 points 1 month ago (15 children)

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.

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