As of July 1, a pregnant woman who gives birth in Tennessee to a baby who has neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), a transient and easily treatable condition, could be arrested for assault. Many women in opioid treatment programs (OTPs) are likely to deliver a baby with NAS, so the American Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence (AATOD) and the state chapter worked hard to try to convince Gov. Bill Haslam not to sign the bill; however, April 29, he signed it.
It’s much safer for the fetus for a woman to stay on methadone or buprenorphine during her pregnancy than to come off it, medical experts agree. That’s why AATOD and other health care advocates are concerned that out of fear of being arrested, pregnant women will try to avoid or terminate treatment, or if they are not in treatment, avoid medical care altogether.
Although the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (TDMHSAS), which regulates OTPs and other treatment programs, has said that it doesn’t want women in treatment in OTPs to be arrested, it has no authority over what individual prosecutors and police officers decide to do.
“It continues to trouble us that the Department of Health and TDMHSAS has no authority over prosecutors,” said a joint press statement signed by AATOD president Mark Parrino, Deb Crowley (chair and president of the Tennessee chapter of AATOD), Joycelyn Woods (executive director of the National Alliance for Medication Assisted Recovery [NAMA-R]), and Zac Talbott (director of NAMA-R of Tennessee). “Under the new law the possibility remains that individual prosecutors could attempt to bring charges against pregnant women enrolled in MAT who deliver babies that show signs of neonatal abstinence syndrome.”
The law has no specific exemption for women in medication-assisted treatment (MAT) who do not test positive for any illicit substance, something that AATOD calls “frightening.” Women in treatment with methadone will be subject to criminal proceedings simply for following the best advice of their physicians.
This is not to say that AATOD thinks any women should be arrested for using drugs—in fact, nobody can be arrested for “using” drugs. What the Tennessee law does is to take another step toward calling a fetus a “person,” and criminalizing the mother for “assault” on the fetus by using drugs.
“This law could leave open the possibility for women to be criminally prosecuted for seeking and obtaining the medical treatment for their disease that is the medically accepted standard of care and most responsible decision they could make for the healthy development of their unborn babies,” concluded AATOD.
Asked whether women in MAT will be protected from arrest, TDMHSAS communications director Michael A. Rabkin said that the law “protects these women from arrest.” The law says that women who complete a treatment program will not be arrested. What should providers do to protect their patients? “There is nothing specific that providers need to be doing to protect them, since it is the law that protects them from arrest.
Advocates, however, urge that treatment providers can do the best thing for their patients by safeguarding their confidentiality and not reporting them or turning over their records to authorities.
We asked what the TDMHSAS is recommending in terms of whether patients should stay on methadone while pregnant. Mr. Rabkin’s response: “Obstetricians have standards of care that they follow that generally say that pregnant women should stay on methadone, but this decision is an individual decision that must be made by each pregnant woman and her doctor.”
Jack McCarthy, MD, an expert on pregnancy and methadone who is with Bi-Valley Medical Clinic in Sacramento, California, is horrified by the law. “I would call detoxing a pregnant woman ‘fetus abuse,’” he says. “Legally the fetus might be allowed protection from cruel practices such as opioid withdrawal.” McCarthy published a paper on “Intrauterine Abstinence Syndrome” two years ago. Summed up, it says that “You can kill a fetus and you can severely stress a fetus by ‘detoxing’ the mother,’” he said.