FETAL ASSAULT LAWS send Pregnant Women to Prison for 15 years

http://www.alternet.org/inside-fetal-assault-law-sending-pregnant-people-prison?akid=14080.294211.cKPNjz&rd=1&src=newsletter1052897&t=10

A subcommittee in the Tennessee legislature considered a bill to permanently extend the most horrific anti-pregnant person law you’ve never heard of.

House Bill (HB) 1660 and the Senate companion (SB 1629) would remove the built-in expiration date of July 1, 2016, for a criminal code provision — dubbed “Tennessee’s Fetal Assault Law” by reproductive justice advocates — that allows the prosecution and subsequent 15-year prison sentence for any pregnant person who ingests an illegal drug. As written, criminal charges can be avoided by completing a state treatment program — should they be able to find one willing and able to accept them.

“Tennessee’s fetal assault law has harmed the very families it claims to help,” Allison Glass, state director of Healthy and Free Tennessee, said in a statement. “It has resulted in the arrest of more than 30 women. It has torn mothers away from their young children and made them scared to seek care.”