June 21, 2021 – In 2016, after an investigation by ProPublica and AL.com, Alabama lawmakers amended the law to protect mothers who took drugs prescribed by doctors. Dana Sussman, an attorney at National Advocates for Pregnant Women, said that bill made it clear state leaders did not want prosecutions against mothers with legal prescriptions.
Alabama authorities have prosecuted hundreds of women for drug use during pregnancy in the last decade, but this may be the first case charging fraud because a woman allegedly didn’t tell her doctor about a pregnancy, Sussman said.
Prescription fraud cases usually happen when a person uses a false identity or forgery to get controlled substances. Emma Roth, an attorney for National Advocates for Pregnant Women representing Blalock, said Lauderdale County officials are using charges of prescription fraud to get around the exemption in the chemical endangerment law.
“It seems to us that this is a way that the state and the prosecution wants to circumvent the acts of the legislature,” Roth said. “Legislators excluded women from lawful prescriptions from the chemical endangerment law. This is a way for the prosecution to work around that.”
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