PRESCRIPTION FOR TROUBLE

THE HIPPOCRATIC Oath instructs physicians to do no harm to their patients.
It says nothing about damaging civil liberties.

That's an area that will have to be clarified by the Supreme Court this
year after it hears a case about a South Carolina program that required
doctors to secretly drug test pregnant women.

It was begun in 1989 at the Medical University of South Carolina in
Charleston in response to rising numbers of crack- and cocaine-using
mothers giving birth to addicted babies. Physicians administered urine
tests to select mothers without their knowledge to identify the ones with
drug problems. Those that tested positive were given the option of getting
drug treatment or going to jail.

Before the program was suspended in 1994 because of litigation, 253 women
tested positive for cocaine. Of those, 30 were arrested, and two were
convicted and were sentenced to drug treatment, not prison.

Although health officials instituted the policy in the best interests of
the unborn, they trampled the rights of the mothers to do it.

No, mothers-to-be do not have a right to smoke crack. But all citizens are
protected by the Fourth Amendment's ban on illegal searches. You can't pick
and choose who is covered - which is exactly what the hospital did.

The hospital says women were selected to be tested based on their economic
status. Since when does being poor and pregnant mark a woman as being a
potential crack head? Surely there are more reliable signs of drug use that
could have narrowed the search.

If the government's goal was to protect all unborn children from the
ravages of drugs, why didn't it test all pregnant women who came to the
hospital? That way it could have nabbed not just the poor mothers who smoke
crack, but also the middle- and upper-class ones who snort the more
expensive powder cocaine or abuse other controlled substances that are
harmful to fetuses.

The Charleston case is a timely one because the Supreme Court has been
struggling to define the limits of police searches, especially those that
argue there is a compelling public safety interest at stake to justify
loosening constitutional restrictions.

For example, the court has permitted roadblocks searching for drunken
drivers. But last year it struck down an Indianapolis police program that
stopped motorists traveling in high-crime neighborhoods and searched them
for drugs.

The lesson of Indianapolis should be applied to Charleston: The public good
is not ultimately served by the erosion of public rights.