WOMAN CHALLENGES COURT'S VIEW OF FETUS

Justices Hear Appeal Of Woman Accused Of Using Cocaine While Pregnant

A landmark state Supreme Court ruling that said a "viable fetus" is a
person should be overturned because it violates women's rights and has
contributed to rising infant death rates, a lawyer said Wednesday. "This
court cannot afford to continue ... to isolate itself from the world,"
Rauch Wise, who represents Brenda Kay Peppers, said during oral arguments
on her case at the Supreme Court.

The central issue in the case is whether a viable fetus -- a fetus that
can survive on its own outside the womb -- is considered a person under
state child abuse and neglect laws. The Supreme Court ruled in 1997 that a
viable fetus is a person under those laws.

The five-member court will issue its ruling on Peppers' appeal at a later date.

Peppers, 35, was charged in Laurens County with unlawful conduct toward a
child by taking cocaine while she was pregnant in 1996. Peppers gave birth
to a stillborn child with cocaine in its system. The state Attorney
General's Office indicted her in 1998.

After failing to get the indictment dismissed, Peppers pleaded guilty in
1999 and was sentenced to two years probation. She appealed her case to the
S.C. Supreme Court.

Peppers said after Wednesday's hearing that doctors told her that a
condition she was suffering during her pregnancy, characterized by a
breakdown of red blood cells, caused her child's death, not cocaine. She
said she received no prenatal care while in jail on a probation violation
during the seventh month of her pregnancy.

"Incarceration is not the answer," she said.

Harold Coombs Jr., a senior assistant attorney general, argued Wednesday
that Peppers forfeited her constitutional claims when she pleaded guilty.

"I think it's very clear this case will be reversed and remanded (to the
lower court) on procedural grounds," Attorney General Charlie Condon, who
attended the hearing, said afterward.

State and national medical groups that submitted legal briefs on behalf of
Peppers say South Carolina stands alone in prosecuting women for abuse or
neglect of their unborn children.

"There's a fear that other states will be misguided and enact similar
policies," said Daniel Abrahamson of the San Francisco-based Lindesmith
Center, a drug policy research institute.

Women advocates say South Carolina's policy has caused addicted pregnant
women to avoid prenatal care. During the hearing, Wise said that after a
10-year decline in infant deaths, mortality rates statewide have been
rising since 1997, when the Supreme Court issued the ruling in question.
"The word on the street is, 'If you're addicted and you tell your doctor,
you're going to go straight to jail,' " Wyndi Anderson of S.C. Advocates
for Pregnant Women said after the hearing.

The Attorney General's Office indicted Peppers using the 1997 state Supreme
Court ruling in another cocaine-baby case. In that ruling, the court for
the first time specifically said that a viable fetus is a person under
state child abuse and neglect laws.

Wise said Wednesday that ruling should be reversed because it could lead,
among things, to pregnant women being prosecuted for other potentially
risky, but legal behavior, such as smoking or drinking.

"Already this parade of horrors is not imaginary," Wise said, citing the
arrest of a Lancaster County woman who was accused of harming her unborn
child by drinking during her pregnancy.

The 1997 ruling violates a woman's constitutional right to privacy in
making her own decisions about her pregnancy, Wise said. A footnote in the
landmark U.S. Supreme Court case legalizing abortion, Roe v. Wade, said
that a viable fetus is not a person, he pointed out.