PROPOSED LAW TARGETS PREGNANT DRUG USERS

Police reports indicate a pregnant Melissa Ann Rowland had opiates,
barbiturates and amphetamines in her blood when she visited Jordan
Valley Hospital in December. But Rowland was allowed to walk away
because abusing a fetus is not a crime in Utah.

At least not yet.

A proposed law being discussed by the Statewide Association of
Prosecutors targets drug-abusing pregnant women.

Harming a fetus by using controlled substances should be a crime,
according to Paul Boyden, executive director of the association, but
instead of sending pregnant women to jail, they need to be forced into
drug treatment.

"We are concerned about the child -- these kids born dependent to
drugs," said Boyden, who hopes to have a law before the state
Legislature next year.

The idea of adding the fetus to the child endangerment statute cropped
up about two years ago in reaction to the number of pregnant women
seen around meth labs, but drug treatment providers opposed the
change, saying it would scare drug-dependent women from seeking help
for fear of being jailed.

Prosecutors, primarily in Salt Lake County, recently took up the
discussion again. Boyden says a variety of other cases -- not
Rowland's -- led to the new initiative to expand the child
endangerment law.

"It is not a result of it, but [Rowland] is certainly an extension of
the same concerns," he said.

Rowland, 28, was charged with murder on March 11 for allegedly
delaying an emergency Caesarian section that may have saved her unborn
twin boy. That charge was dropped Wednesday, when she pleaded guilty
to two counts of child endangerment, a third-degree felony, in a plea
agreement.

She admitted to taking cocaine from Dec. 1 to Jan. 13 -- when she gave
birth to a stillborn boy and a girl with cocaine and alcohol in her
system.

In charging Rowland with murder, prosecutors relied on a seldom-used
statute from 1983 that added the term "including an unborn child" to
Utah's definition of a homicide. That term is nowhere to be found in
Utah's "Endangerment of a child or elder adult" statute.

Child endangerment hinges on the definition of a child as someone
under the age of 18.

However, the lack of the unborn child addition makes no difference in
Rowland's case, said a University of Utah law professor.

"You don't have a controversy over this," Erik Luna said. "It's over.
This simply will not be argued in this case."

Defendants can plea bargain down to an unapplicable charge if all
sides agree, in what is called "a legal fiction."

But prosecutors say the child endangerment charge may not have held if
the case went to trial.

"The present laws make it difficult to adequately arrange criminal
sanctions for failing to attempt to get treatment on behalf of the
mother and the child," said Kent Morgan, spokesman from the Salt Lake
County District Attorney's Office.

He said the criminal code doesn't address the unborn in its child
abuse or child neglect statutes either. The prosecutors association
discussed the proposed law among its members, and Boyden, along with
Patrick Fleming, from the Salt Lake County Division of Substance Abuse
Service, then spoke with the state sentencing commission within the
last week.

Boyden said he also plans to discuss the proposal with treatment
providers and women's rights groups -- such as those critical of the
Rowland case -- before drafting the final bill.

Lorna Vogt, from the Utah Progressive Network, would like to be part
of that conversation. She welcomes ways to help pregnant women, and
while she is generally wary of criminal prosecution in these cases,
she plans to reserve judgement until she sees a final draft of the
proposed bill.

"This is a great goal, I am glad they are doing it," she said. But at
least one drug treatment provider says she has the same reservations
expressed two years ago.

"What we don't want to do is drive them away from treatment," said
Valerie Fritz, president of the Utah Alcoholism Foundation, who still
fears women will avoid treatment if they know authorities will be called.

Fleming understands that concern and concedes the proposed change
would mean "we might lose some here and there, but in fact we are
going to get them eventually" through child welfare investigators or
the police.

Last year, 282 pregnant women received drug treatment in Utah, 4.81
percent of all women in those programs. The largest group, 152, comes
from Salt Lake County. Pregnant women get priority placement in drug
treatment by law, Fleming said.

"Anything we can do to get women into treatment services as early as
we can, we would just love to do it," Fleming said, "You are saving
two lives for the price of one, and we need to do that." -----

Tribune reporter Jacob Santini contributed to this article.