DRUG TESTING OF PREGNANT WOMEN REACHES NATION'S HIGHEST COURT

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) - Lori Griffin was about to go home from the
hospital after an overnight stay for premature labor pains. Instead, she
was slapped in handcuffs after testing positive for cocaine.

"They told me I was under arrest for distributing to a minor," Griffin
recalled. "They put me in handcuffs and shackles and put me in a wheelchair
and took me to jail."

Eleven years later, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday on
whether testing pregnant women for drugs and reporting the results to
police violates the Constitution's protection against unreasonable searches.

The justices' decision, expected next year, could determine whether other
hospitals can adopt similar practices.

The South Carolina attorney general contends such programs help prevent
babies from being born addicted. The state has used its child-endangerment
law to prosecute pregnant women who use drugs, and South Carolina doctors
must report as child abuse drug use by women late in pregnancy.

Opponents say the tests discourage pregnant drug users from seeking
prenatal care.

"People are very frustrated with addiction and drug use and they want as
big a stick as they can get," said Susan Dunn, a lawyer for Griffin and
other women whose case is before the court. "This would give a new power of
coercion."

The American Medical Association, in a friend-of-the-court brief, also said
the state's drug-testing policy "forces physicians to compromise their
commitment to patient confidentiality."

Griffin was a patient at the public Medical University of South Carolina,
where officials in 1989 decided to help prosecutors battling the crack
epidemic. If a woman's urine test indicated cocaine use, she was reported
to police and arrested for distributing the drug to a minor.

The program run by the hospital and city prosecutors tested women who had a
history of cocaine use or whose prenatal exams suggested use.

In 1990, the policy was changed to give drug-using patients a choice
between arrest and treatment. But 10 women sued the hospital, saying tests
performed without court warrants violate the Fourth Amendment.

The women all signed a consent form, said Dunn, "but it was not adequate to
consent to a search."

She and the other women have lost two rounds of the court battle, with the
4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals saying officials had a substantial
interest in reducing drug use because of the costs of caring for cocaine
babies. The searches were reasonable under a "special needs" exception to
the Fourth Amendment, the court said.

"Do we put mother's privacy first or the baby's right to a normal life?"
asked Bobby Hood, a lawyer representing the hospital and others.