PRIVACY RIGHTS FOR MOTHERS PREVAIL IN DRUG-TEST RULING

The Tribunal Ruled That Pregnant Moms Must Be Told If Test Results
Will Be Turned Over To Law Officers.

When Charleston, S.C., adopted a policy of testing pregnant women in
hospitals for illegal drugs, they were trying to protect unborn babies from
the possible effects of narcotics abuse.

But the consequences for mothers who failed the tests - possible arrest -
erupted into a firestorm.

The US Supreme Court, ruling on the issue yesterday, said the city's
drug-testing policy constituted unreasonable search and seizure. The
decision, by a 6-to-3 vote, affirms privacy rights in a hospital setting.
The justices said the expectant mothers have a constitutional right to be
informed that results of the tests may be used against them.

In effect, the policy pitted the rights of mothers against the rights of
their unborn children, a legal dilemma that some analysts had suggested
might open a new front in the contentious debate over abortion.

Some analysts had warned that if pregnant drug addicts could be prosecuted
because of the potential harm done to their babies, then other women might
be prosecuted for smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, or even coffee
while pregnant.

But the court did not reach that issue.

Writing for the majority, Justice John Paul Stevens said a hospital that
participates in a law-enforcement program must obtain the consent of its
patients so that they are aware that medical tests performed on them may be
used as evidence in a criminal case.

"As [hospital and law-enforcement officials] have repeatedly insisted,
their motive was benign rather than punitive," Justice Stevens writes.
"Such a motive, however, cannot justify a departure from Fourth Amendment
protections."

The case, Ferguson v. City of Charleston, stems from a policy adopted in
1989 as a result of what city officials described as an epidemic of crack
cocaine use.

Under the policy, pregnant women suspected of drug abuse were subject to
secret urine tests for cocaine. Women who tested positive for cocaine were
threatened with arrest unless they agreed to enter a drug-treatment
program. Many did.

But over a five-year period, some 30 women were arrested. All but one were
African-American, and some were arrested immediately after giving birth.

The policy was upheld as lawful in a 1996 federal court trial. A federal
appeals court affirmed the ruling in 1999. The US Supreme Court heard oral
arguments in the case in October.

Yesterday, the justices reversed the appeals court and remanded the case
back to trial court to determine whether the arrested women had granted
their consent to drug testing.