SUPREME COURT HEARS ARGUMENTS IN CASE ABOUT DRINKING PREGNANT WOMAN

MADISON, Wis. - Allowing authorities to prosecute a woman who drank while
she was pregnant could lead to tougher laws controlling what people do with
their bodies, a lawyer told the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

There are no laws against pregnant women smoking, which might be more
harmful to fetuses than alcohol, said Priscilla Smith, a lawyer for the woman.

"We can harm ourselves. It is one of the freedoms, albeit good or bad, that
we have," Smith told the court Thursday.

A prosecutor argued the woman should be tried as a criminal because she
tried to end her pregnancy by drinking the fetus to death.

The woman, Deborah Zimmerman, was at a tavern the day she gave birth to her
daughter March 16, 1996, Racine County prosecutor Joan Korb said.

Zimmerman remarked later in a hospital she drank to "kill this thing," Korb
said.

"There was a substantial probability that this child would have died as a
result of the alcohol," Korb said.

Zimmerman, 37, of Franksville was charged with attempted first-degree
intentional homicide and first-degree reckless injury after her daughter
was born with a 0.199 percent blood-alcohol level.

The mother's blood-alcohol level exceeded 0.30 percent at the time. A level
of 0.10 percent is considered evidence of intoxication under Wisconsin law.

The case is the second before the court that involves drug or alcohol abuse
during pregnancy. The court ruled last year that a Waukesha County woman
could not be taken into custody to protect her fetus after her doctor
reported she was using cocaine.

That case prompted the Legislature to pass a law allowing a woman to be
detained if authorities determine that her alcohol or drug habit endangers
her fetus.

The court's ruling in the case presented Thursday could determine what a
pregnant woman in Wisconsin can legally do with her body, whether she
smokes, drinks or even drives, said Peter Koneazny, legal director of the
state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

"Women should pay close attention because the implications of having the
state take control of all dangerous behavior for pregnant women has no
logical limits," Koneazny said.

Zimmerman wanted the charges dropped. She challenged a Circuit Court's
refusal in Racine to dismiss them. An appeals court passed the case on to
the Supreme Court.

She sought to end the pregnancy because she had worries over the baby's
race and the pain of childbirth, prosecutors said.

At the hospital, Zimmerman told a nurse that if she wasn't kept there, "I'm
just going to go home and keep drinking and drink myself to death and I'm
going to kill this thing because I don't want it anyways," court records said.

The girl, now 2 and in foster care, had a low birthweight and mild physical
abnormalities that doctors attribute to her mother's drinking, prosecutors
said.

Zimmerman remains in Taycheedah women's prison in Fond du Lac for bail jumping.

Checked-by: Richard Lake