A Q is posed: when is the mother criminally liable for injuries to her fetus, when mom has been ingesting illegal substances? This varies from state-to-state in the USA, and would be a hot potato in whatever jurisdiction you are in. Sometimes there will be laws defining what a "person" or "life" is for purposes of prosecution; sometimes there is only case law (meaning a judge's decision, made case-by-case). Then, you have several layers of prosecutorial discretion that would affect the trial itself, starting with the police officer (who decides whom to arrest); the charging or indicting authority (usually the district or county attorney, who decides which laws to claim were broken); the investigators and trials attorneys (who may decide they don't have the necessary proofs to make the charges stick); the trial judge (who may decide the prosecutors don't have the necessary proofs). And we haven't even touched the job of the defense attorneys, who would argue that all of the charges are invalid, on whatever procedural or substantive grounds are available. In short: no easy answers. At all! Liz Brooks, JD, IBCLC Wyndmoor, PA, USA *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html