DA: DOCTORS MUST TURN IN PREGNANT WOMEN FOR DRUG USE

AMARILLO, Texas - Health care providers and several women's groups say a
West Texas district attorney's interpretation of a new state law violates
doctor-patient confidentiality and could cause expectant mothers to avoid
prenatal care.

Rebecca King, district attorney of Potter and Armstrong counties,
argues that obstetricians must tell authorities about illegal drug use
by pregnant women under a law designed to protect unborn children.
She says she will prosecute physicians if they persistently fail to
report such drug use. She has gotten convictions against two expectant
mothers and plans to prosecute more, citing the law passed last year
that classifies unborn babies as individuals. The law permits criminal
prosecution of adults who harm unborn children through illegal acts.

But many health care professionals - and the sponsor of the law - say
King is wrong. State Rep. Ray Allen, R-Grand Prairie, has July asked
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to clarify the law, and an opinion
expected to rule in January.

Ms. King defends her cases, saying federal and state laws protecting
doctor-patient confidentiality have boundaries.

"You don't have a privacy act when you break the law. I'm doing this
because I believe the law mandates it," she said. Ms. King also
denied her interpretation dissuades women from seeing doctors.

"It is a minimal percentage of women who have any prenatal care who we
are looking at here," she said.

Before lawmakers changed the law, health care professionals were
required to report suspected abuse after babies were born.

King believes the new definition extends to abuse or neglect in utero.

- - Cut from DMN story - The Texas Medical Association is among several
groups that have written to Abbott supporting Allen's stance that King
is extending the legal definition of individuals into statutes that
lawmakers never intended. "When you enlist secret police then you are
intentionally, deliberately and devastatingly undermining the very
relationship needed to produce healthy children," said Lynn Paltrow,
an attorney and executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant
Women. "This interpretation of the law demonstrates absolute disregard
for maternal and fetal health by frightening women away from getting
the health care they need during pregnancy." The change gives a fetus
legal standing but exempts health care providers who perform a legal
medical procedure, such as an abortion, and mothers. While prominent
medical and health groups are among her critics, King said she has
heard from several Panhandle physicians who support her
interpretation. She said she could not recall their names. The largest
group in Texas that opposes abortions, the Texas Right to Life,
disagrees with King's actions, though a spokeswoman said the group is
not against physicians confronting expectant mothers.

"Her interpretation is incomplete and erroneous," spokeswoman Stacey
Emick said. "When legislators work hard to spell something out, it's
surprising to see someone take that and not accurately interpret the
law." King sent a letter to Potter County physicians after the law
went into effect in September 2003, telling them they must "report a
pregnant woman who is using or has used illegal narcotics during her
pregnancy." The letter worried several area doctors, including Dr.
Moss Hampton, an Amarillo obstetrician and gynecologist who has
practiced for 20 years. "I think it's a sticky wicket and it puts us
in a very precarious position," said Moss, who sits on the Texas
Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' executive council. "In
confidentiality the patient tells us a lot of things they expect us
not to tell anyone else. It puts a little more distrust into the system."

Since sending her letter, King has prosecuted two women, both of whom
pleaded guilty and received five years probation and were ordered into
drug treatment programs.

In the most recent case in early September, Tracy Ward, 30, retained
her right to appeal in her plea agreement. An appellate ruling in
Ward's favor could be used in defending other cases.