WOMAN JAILED OVER COCAINE IN NEWBORN

WASHINGTON -- A South Carolina woman whose newborn son tested positive for
cocaine was sent to jail Friday under a first-in- the-nation court ruling
that permits the prosecution of women under child endangerment law for
using drugs during pregnancy.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist turned down an emergency plea to block the
woman's incarceration while her lawyers appeal her conviction in the
Supreme Court. South Carolina is the only state to have broadly interpreted
its child endangerment law to cover a "viable fetus."

Malissa Ann Crawley gave birth to a child with cocaine in his system in
1991 and pleaded guilty to the child neglect charge brought against her.
She was given a five-year prison term but was put on probation.

Since then, Crawley's probation was revoked over a fight with a boyfriend,
and on Friday, she was ordered to report to prison and to serve out her
five-year sentence. She has two other children.

The legality of prosecutions such as Crawley's in South Carolina had been
in doubt until October, when the state Supreme Court -- on a 3-2 vote --
ruled a late-term fetus was covered by the traditional child endangerment
law.

Crawley's case, while setting no precedent yet, has emerged at the center
of new debate over the legal status of a fetus and whether children are
helped or hurt by punishing their mothers for drug abuse.

In Roe vs. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that women have a right to
abort a pregnancy until the time a fetus is "viable," or capable of living
on its own. Medically, this is considered to come at roughly the sixth
month of a pregnancy.

South Carolina Attorney General Charles Condon has campaigned on the theme
that a "viable fetus is a fellow South Carolinian," and entitled to legal
protection. He has brought criminal charges against more than a dozen women
for cocaine abuse while pregnant.

"The state of South Carolina is going to take care of its children. We have
a moral and a legal obligation to do it, and we are proud of the fact that
we are first to do it," Robb McBurney, Condon's spokesman, said Friday. The
get-tough prosecution policy will help children and their mothers by
encouraging drug abusers to get treatment, he added.

Crawley's lawyers will file an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court next month
challenging her prosecution.