Texas fetus abuse law could spell legal trouble for doctors

Mandatory reporting of drug use by expectant mothers could hurt the physician-patient relationship, doctors say.

By Tanya Albert, AMNews staff. Feb. 2, 2004.

Texas physicians are worried that doctors who fail to report illegal drug use by pregnant women will be punished under a new state law that aims to prevent abuse of unborn children.

"It's a real reach," said Brian J. Eades, MD, an obstetrician-gynecologist from Amarillo, Texas. "If [the law] is held up by the courts, it will have far-reaching effects."

The new pressure to report seems to be an unintended consequence of Texas' Prenatal Protection Act, which went into effect in September 2003. But not all district attorneys have the same interpretation.

The act holds people who assault or harm a pregnant woman liable for crimes against the mother and unborn child. Violators could face criminal or civil charges and potentially could do time in jail.

The law exempts doctors who are performing a "legal medical procedure," such as abortion.

But District Attorney Rebecca King, whose jurisdiction is in the Amarillo area, has linked the new act with existing laws and concluded that physicians must report pregnant women who are abusing illegal substances to the local police or to the Dept. of Protective and Regulatory Services.

The Prenatal Protection Act expanded the definition of an "individual" to include an "unborn child at every stage of gestation from fertilization until birth." Texas law already makes it a second-degree felony to give a child a controlled substance.

State law also establishes that a physician or other professional who believes or has reason to believe that a "child has been abused or neglected or may be abused or neglected" report that concern to the state.