COURT: DRUG USE CAN EQUAL CHILD ABUSE

The justices said a woman who smokes crack cocaine during pregnancy is
committing a type of abuse to the child.

A woman who smoked crack cocaine during pregnancy can be charged with
abusing the child born addicted to the drug, the Ohio Supreme Court declared
yesterday.

But in its 5-2 ruling, the court deemed it unnecessary to address the larger
issue of whether a fetus is legally a child, at least as defined in the
state's child-abuse laws.

The ruling came in the case of Canton resident Tonya Kimbrough, who lost
custody of her son Lorenzo Blackshear shortly after his birth July 14, 1998,
when nurses noticed the infant was "jittery.''

Urine tests revealed that baby and mother had cocaine in their systems, and
an appellate court upheld the removal of Lorenzo from his mother's custody.

Kimbrough, who has given birth to two other sons with drug addictions,
appealed the custody decision, contending that her drug use occurred before
the boy's birth and that Ohio's child-abuse laws don't protect fetuses.

"We find that the issue is not whether a fetus is a child but rather whether
the plain language (of the state law) applies to Lorenzo and the facts of
this case,'' Justice Andrew Douglas wrote in the six-page decision.

Under state law, an abused child is any child who -- because of the acts of
his parents -- suffers physical or mental injury that harms or threatens to
harm the child's health or welfare.

"It is clear that the action causing the injury to Lorenzo was taken by one
of his parents, Kimbrough,'' Douglas wrote. "It is clear that the action
taken by Kimbrough caused Lorenzo injury -- both before and after birth . .