Woman charged for murder after giving birth to stillborn after using meth during pregnancy.

[Climber]

California's attorney general condemns murder charges over a stillbirth

After her pregnancy ended in a stillbirth last year, a woman in California was charged with murder. Kings County prosecutors said that the fetus had died because the woman, Chelsea Becker, used methamphetamines during her pregnancy.

The case has captured the attention of civil rights groups and reproductive health advocates, who have argued that the charges against Becker could set up a dangerous precedent for criminalizing the choices that women make while pregnant.

Becker, who has been in jail since her arrest in November and is being held with bail set at $2 million, challenged the murder charge in a petition. It was denied by the Superior Court of Kings County in June.

What are your thoughts on this?

This case could be precedence setting.

 

[aminalmutha]

Bakersfield knows tweakers ain't good for two mil...

 

[mean dad]

Love the condescension, but why Bakersfield?

She's from another city, in another county.

 

[CocoLoco]

It's idiotic. A person dealing with all the baggage associated with addiction is charged with murdering what amounts to a piece of herself?

 

[aminalmutha]

Damn, I read Kern Co., not Kings. They are next door to each other, same same.

Hanford knows tweakers ain't good for two mil.

I have relatives buried in Hanford, so I have shit-talk rights.

 

[East Bay Mike]

It's idiotic. A person dealing with all the baggage associated with addiction is charged with murdering what amounts to a piece of herself?

Agreed.

 

[TylerW]

I don't see what benefit a murder charge brings. This will not help her, nor her community.

She needs social support, not a judge.

 

[Smash Allen]

A November statement from the Hanford Police Department said the coroner’s office in Kings County had ruled the fetus’s death a homicide because of toxic levels of methamphetamine in the fetus’s system, adding that Becker “further admitted to law enforcement she used methamphetamine while she was most recently pregnant as late as three days prior to giving birth.”

She deserves the charge, the penalty should be at least sterilization so she doesn't keep hurting 'parts of herself' (that feel pain by the way). How about we give her what she gave her baby, a lethal dose of meth?

 

[TylerW]

She deserves the charge, the penalty should be at least sterilization so she doesn't keep hurting 'parts of herself' (that feel pain by the way). How about we give her what she gave her baby, a lethal dose of meth?

Forced sterilization? Really.

 

[mean dad]

If I see a woman enjoying a glass of wine or smoking during her pregnancy, I want her to go straight to jail.

Use a product that contains a carcinogen? Jail.

Don't eat healthy? Jail.

Don't exercise? Believe it or not, jail.

 

[Smash Allen]

I wouldn't be surprised if she lacks the ability to think and reason logically.

 

[cheez]

I don't see what benefit a murder charge brings. This will not help her, nor her community.

She needs social support, not a judge.

+1

 

[wazzuFreddo]

Prison sounds like a waste of resources in this case. Is there something we can do to do better, perhaps treating addiction as the health crisis that it is?

 

[Smash Allen]

If I see a woman enjoying a glass of wine or smoking during her pregnancy, I want her to go straight to jail.

Use a product that contains a carcinogen? Jail.

Don't eat healthy? Jail.

Don't exercise? Believe it or not, jail.

if the fetus has toxic levels of alcohol or nicotine and died from it? then yea

the other examples are slippery slope fallacies

 

[Melissa]

pulls hair out.

 

[aminalmutha]

She needs social support

LOLZ. Tweakers always be tweakin'. Jail isn't going to help either. There is no solution, sorry to say. I know everyone wants to "fix" this problem, but to be honest, I don't think there is an answer.

 

[TylerW]

I wouldn't be surprised if she lacks the ability to think and reason logically.

And that's justification to declare her body as state property, to do with it what they will?

 

[Smash Allen]

And that's justification to declare her body as state property, to do with it what they will?

The state has an obligation to protect it's citizens.

 

[mean dad]

if the fetus has toxic levels of alcohol or nicotine and died from it? then yea

the other examples are slippery slope fallacies

No, I didn't say the baby needed to die, so go on and get out with your slippery slope nonsense.
Go on, get.



How much nicotine does it take to damage a fetal brain's development? How much alcohol?

It's child abuse. :x

 

[Melissa]

That's why so many women who are perinatal need treatment. MAT is great for heroin and opiates in general. Usually CPS would step in and attempt to get mom treatment services. Consequences are provided, punishment is not the way to go on this topic.