'COCAINE MOM' PREGNANCY NO ONE ELSE'S BUSINESS

Thanks to Lisa Sink's reporting in the Dec. 17 Journal Sentinel, a Waukesha
woman got to wake up that morning to see an abovethefold, frontpage
story announcing her pregnancy.

The hook was that she is drug-addicted. That her addiction threatens her
health and that of her child is bad enough, but it's nobody's business but
hers.

The current political mood is that these "cocaine moms" need mandated
addiction counseling. As outraged as our morally puffed-out politicians are
over this issue, I sense no similar outrage from them over the idea of
barging into a woman's uterus without knocking.

The idea of reproductive choice is that a woman actually has one, even if a
majority around her may not agree with it. In fact, it is at that exact
point that the essence of personal freedom is fully realized.

Before hanging up on a reporter, the woman's mother asked that her daughter
be left alone. The newspaper should have done just that, rather than
pillory her on the front page.

In a recent editorial, the Journal Sentinel spoke out against the "cocaine
mom" bill, which makes Sink's strategically placed infomercial all the more
confusing.

John Ptacek
Whitefish Bay