DRUG-ABUSING MOMS DESERVE LOSS OF RIGHTS

In a life marked by cocaine use and criminal conduct, 33-year-old Rochelle
Pennex has borne 13 children.

At least five of those children tested positive for cocaine at birth,
according to testimony before an Oakland County Probate Court referee.

Ten are in foster care, and the youngest, 9-day-old Zaria, is on life
support, the victim of paralysis, heart failure and brain damage her
court-appointed attorney attributes to Pennex's cocaine use.

So why, a reasonable person might ask, is Pennex still walking around with
a functioning uterus?

There are several reasons, none of them very satisfactory.

Doctors at North Oakland Medical Center reportedly offered to perform a
tubal ligation on Pennex after Zaria was delivered -- two months
prematurely -- on April 4. A Children's Protective Services worker
testified that Pennex refused, explaining that she intends to have more
children.

Zaria remained hospitalized Thursday. But neither her doctors nor the
attorney appointed to represent the newborn baby have heard from Pennex
since the birth.

Not easily done

Appellate courts have been understandably reluctant to sanction
sterilization or mandatory birth control in response to criminal conduct,
noting that lawmakers tread on dangerous ground whenever they endeavor to
say who may and may not reproduce.

"The power to sterilize, if exercised, may have subtle, far-reaching and
devastating effects," Justice William O. Douglas wrote in a 1942 U.S.
Supreme Court ruling that struck down a law mandating the sterilization of
repeat felons. "In evil or reckless hands, it can cause races or types
which are inimical to the dominant group to wither and disappear."

On a more pragmatic level, physicians and counselors have warned that
attempts to prosecute or sterilize women who abuse drugs while pregnant
will only discourage expectant mothers from seeking the prenatal attention
their babies so desperately need.

Consider the extremes

Perhaps. But assurances that her future procreative endeavors would not be
foreclosed didn't prevent Pennex from checking out of North Oakland Medical
Center -- over her doctor's objections -- on March 22, after an earlier
pregnancy-related emergency drove her to seek help there.

And why, exactly, should a society that doesn't hesitate to terminate an
abusive mother's parental rights feel so squeamish when it comes to
interfering with her reproductive ones?

Even the most zealous firearms enthusiasts generally agree that outlaws who
use their guns to kill or maim forfeit any moral right to bear arms. Can't
those of us who generally defend reproductive freedom acknowledge analogous
scenarios in which an abusive parent's right to procreate is no longer
defensible?

It's time for policymakers to confront squarely the challenge posed by
expectant mothers whose substance abuse has turned their wombs into torture
chambers.

The dangers inherent in mandating birth control or sterilization have not
diminished. But the costs of doing nothing to rein in mothers like Pennex
are becoming exorbitant.

"If ever there's a case that's going to force people to stand up and take
notice of the damage being done to these children," says Zaria's
court-appointed attorney, Dan Bagdade, "this is the case."

Then again, we can always wait for No. 14.