SAN FRANCISCO – A woman in central California accused of murder after giving birth to a stillborn baby with a positive meth test can be released on reduced bail, as her lawyers argue that the state homicide law does not apply to pregnant women, a position supported by the attorney General of California.
Chelsea Becker, 26, has been in Kings County prison since her arrest in November 2019, unable to raise $ 2 million bail. A judge should consider on Tuesday whether to release her to a treatment center outside the county pending trial. She pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors say the case is about stopping a woman who has repeatedly abused narcotics during pregnancy, resulting in two other babies testing positive for methamphetamine at birth.
The case outraged defenders of pregnant women who claim that overzealous prosecutors are trying to punish a woman who needs treatment, not prison, and expect the charges to be dismissed soon. There is no evidence that drug use results in stillbirths, they say, and allowing the charges would have an inhibiting effect: preventing women from seeking the necessary antenatal care.
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“We are deeply saddened and horrified that this case has continued for 15 months, keeping someone incarcerated because she lost a pregnancy, which thousands of women do every year,” said Lynn Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, which is providing legal support to Becker.
This photo provided by the Hanford Police Department shows Chelsea Becker on November 6, 2019. (Hanford Police Department via AP)
((Hanford Police Department via AP))
California’s chief prosecutor, Xavier Becerra, who is being considered secretary of health and human services in the Biden administration, sent a friend of the document to the court stating that the law was never made to apply to pregnant women and calling for the charges to be dropped. . However, Kings County Superior Court Judge Robert Shane refused to do so.
In September 2019, Becker gave birth to a stillborn child that she called Zachariah Joseph Campos. The coroner’s report listed toxic levels of methamphetamine as the cause of death, but one of Becker’s lawyers, Dan Arshack, said the pathologist never revised his medical record, which included three infections that could have caused stillbirth.
Becker gave birth to three living children and had no reason to believe that the use of methamphetamine would cause stillbirth, Arshack said. He refused to make Becker available for an interview.
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“This was a baby she wanted so badly, and she remains heartbroken for having resulted in a stillborn baby, like any woman who still births,” he said, adding that the notion that she carried malice towards her son “it’s just the prosecutor’s magic. thought.”
Phil Esbenshade, the principal assistant district attorney in Kings County, said Becker has repeatedly endangered his children with the use of narcotics. He rejects the idea that the law does not apply to Becker. An appeals court and the state Supreme Court refused to intervene, saying it was too early for the legal process.
“At this point, Mrs. Becker has experienced the longest period of sobriety in recent months than in her entire adult life. We hope for her rehabilitation and her ability to stop choosing drugs instead of her children,” he said in a statement. an announcement.
Lawmakers have debated the intersection of substance use and pregnancy since the late 1980s, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that works to promote sexual and reproductive rights. The highest courts in Alabama and South Carolina have upheld the convictions that determine that substance use during pregnancy constitutes criminal child abuse, according to the institute.
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But several medical and public health groups, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, are opposed to punishment for drug use during pregnancy. There is no evidence that the use of methamphetamine is “unique and fatally dangerous” for the fetus, two doctors said in a letter sent by Becker’s lawyers.
In California, lawmakers changed the state’s murder statute to include a fetus after the California Supreme Court in 1970 overturned the conviction of a man who had beaten a pregnant woman, causing her to lose the baby. Attempts in California in the 1990s to use the law to prosecute pregnant women have failed.