COCAINE MOM, FETICIDE BILLS OK'D

Debate turns emotional over measures aimed at protecting fetuses

Madison -- After four hours of intense, often emotional debate Friday, the
Senate passed two measures that proponents said would protect fetuses.

The Senate passed, by a 20-12 vote, the so-called cocaine mom bill, which
would allow for the detention and treatment of pregnant women addicted to
alcohol or drugs.

If the cocaine mom bill becomes law, Wisconsin would be among the first
states in the nation to allow judges to order drug-or alcohol-addicted
pregnant women detained to protect their fetuses.

Senators also approved a bill that would imprison for life anyone who
intentionally causes the death of a fetus. The bill also covers other
crimes, from negligent homicide to battery. The so-called feticide bill
passed by a 22-10 vote.

Both measures originated in the Assembly, where they passed by substantial
margins a year ago.

Since both bills were amended Friday by the Senate, they will go to the
Assembly for approval.

The bills were driven largely by two highly publicized cases that went all
the way to the state Supreme Court.

In the "cocaine mom" case, a pregnant Waukesha woman identified only as
Angela had refused drug treatment. Her doctor alerted authorities, who got
a court order to detain and treat her for cocaine addiction.

But a year ago, the Supreme Court ruled, 4-3, the officials lacked
authority to detain her under a state law protecting children against abuse
and neglect. The legislation passed Friday was drafted in response to the
high court's decision.

In changing the bill Friday, the Senate deleted a requirement from the bill
that doctors report pregnant women who refuse treatment to authorities. But
other amendments that would have provided funding for treatment were rejected.

Sen. Gwen Moore (D-Milwaukee) tried several times to include funding for
treatment. For all the publicity surround the Waukesha woman, Moore said
that 86% of the women who would be affected by the bill live in Milwaukee
County and 80% of those women are poor. One amendment sought $1.2 million
to treat those women.

"Ain't a dime in this bill, not one dime to make this happen," said Moore,
arguing passionately at times.

Speaking directly to the Senate sponsor of the bill, Moore said Sen. Joanne
Huelsman (R-Waukesha) and other proponents could pose for pictures when the
governor signs the bill, but little could be done to help addicted women
and their children without funding.

"It's fine and good, Senator, to stand up there and get your free Parker
pen from the governor and say, 'Look what we're doing for women,' and it's
another thing to have waiting lists with 500 to 600 people," Moore said.

"Stop all these holy pictures, all the bill signings, only to put these
women on waiting lists," Moore said. "We need $1.2 million in Milwaukee
County today for drug treatment!"

Moore also said women would be reluctant to seek treatment, for fear of
losing their liberty and possibly their children to authorities.

"This is not, 'Come on, honey, let us help you with your substance abuse
problems,' " Moore said. "You're putting yourself in harm's way of losing
your liberty as a pregnant woman. If you go seek treatment, you're at risk
of losing custody of your child."

For the most part, Huelsman sat silent, letting Moore and others rail
against the bill.

After the vote, Huelsman said the mandatory reporting requirement for
doctors that was removed had been the major criticism of the bill.

"Most of the people opposed to the bill said, with the reporting mandate in
there, people would be afraid to come for prenatal care," Huelsman said.
"They might be afraid to go for (drug treatment). With that mandate
removed, I'm hopeful that that fear won't be there."

William Domina, the assistant Waukesha County corporation counsel who led
the effort in 1995 to protect Angela's fetus, was pleased with the vote.

"Our office has worked hard to raise the issue surrounding the rights of
children to be born healthy and to start life unimpeded by the effects of
drug and alcohol abuse," he said. "We believe this legislation helps in
that endeavor.

"We hope that the bill will withstand constitutional scrutiny and be
constitutionally applied by prosecutors in Wisconsin," Domina added.

In March, South Dakota's Gov. William Janklow signed two bills legalizing
the involuntarily commitment to a treatment facility for nearly the entire
nine-month gestational period of a pregnant abuser of alcohol or
non-prescribed drugs. The laws take effect July 1.

Similar bills have been introduced in 12 states this year, compared with
seven -- all of which failed -- in 1997.

In Wisconsin, the second bill to protect fetuses was prompted by a Supreme
Court case involving a Milwaukee man, Glendale R. Black, whom authorities
attempted to prosecute under a 1955 criminal abortion law for the death of
his unborn son.

On Feb. 8, 1992, Black and his wife, Tracy, argued in their home on
Milwaukee's south side. She was within a week of her expected delivery
date. She told police that he hit her twice in the stomach, then refused to
call for help or let her do so.

When he relented, she was taken to St. Francis Hospital, where she
delivered by Caesarean section a stillborn son. The attending physicians
said the fetus had bled to death because of blunt force trauma.

The Supreme Court ruled, 5-2, that Black could be prosecuted under the
criminal abortion law, which had not been used since the U.S. Supreme
Court's 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion.

A jury refused to convict Black of feticide under the old law, prompting
Wisconsin Right to Life, an anti-abortion group, to redouble efforts in the
Legislature to get a feticide law passed.

After the vote Friday, Tracy Black, now Tracy Scheide, hugged the bill's
sponsor, Sen. Bob Welch (R-Redgranite).

"I'm happy, ecstatic, overwhelmed," Scheide said. "After six years, we
finally got it. To me, I feel my son can rest. My family, and everybody, we
have fought for this bill for six years. We were not going to give up until
it did pass."

Glendale Black was convicted of first-degree reckless injury, false
imprisonment and aggravated battery and sentenced to 21 years in prison. He
won't be eligible for parole until 2000.

"They couldn't prove intent," Scheide said of the feticide case against her
former husband.

Before the final vote, Welch called attention to Scheide in the Senate
gallery.

"For many years, I and many others in this Legislature have been fighting a
battle to get this bill passed, to right an injustice in this state, where
you could brutally assault a woman, kill her unborn child and get away with
murder," Welch said.

Sen. Fred Risser (D-Madison) agreed legislation was necessary to correct a
problem with Wisconsin's murder statutes, but not the bill Welch offered.

"This bill is being used as a vehicle to help define when life begins, and
I don't think that was necessary or is desirable," Risser said.

He and others failed in their attempts to amend the bill and define in it
an unborn child as a viable fetus.

The measure parallels other state homicide statutes.

Crimes such as battery, reckless injury and injury by intoxicated use of a
vehicle also would apply, if the victim is a fetus, under the proposal.

Mike Johnson of the Journal Sentinel staff, reporting from Waukesha, and
the Los Angeles Times contributed to this report.