<p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 25.3636360168457px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(80, 80, 80);">During a hearing about the bill on Wednesday, <a href="http://www.timesdaily.com/news/state-capital/chemical-endangerment-bill-requires-doctors-to-report-suspicion-quickly/article_7049948e-ed76-5709-8245-511adce06c76.html" style="color: rgb(56, 56, 56); border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; -webkit-transition: color 300ms, background-color 300ms, opacity 300ms; transition: color 300ms, background-color 300ms, opacity 300ms;">the Times Daily reports</a>, Butler “said that women who give birth to babies exposed to illegal drugs are often hard to track down when drug tests come back positive and they’ve already left the hospital.”</p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 25.3636360168457px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(80, 80, 80);">“Crackheads don’t have permanent addresses,” Butler <a href="http://www.timesdaily.com/news/state-capital/chemical-endangerment-bill-requires-doctors-to-report-suspicion-quickly/article_7049948e-ed76-5709-8245-511adce06c76.html" style="color: rgb(56, 56, 56); border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; -webkit-transition: color 300ms, background-color 300ms, opacity 300ms; transition: color 300ms, background-color 300ms, opacity 300ms;">further explained</a> to members of the Alabama’s House Health Committee as the legislative body considered the merits of formally titled H.B. 408.</p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 25.3636360168457px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(80, 80, 80);">Alabama is one of several states “<a href="http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2015/05/critics_say_changes_to_law_wou.html" style="color: rgb(56, 56, 56); border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; -webkit-transition: color 300ms, background-color 300ms, opacity 300ms; transition: color 300ms, background-color 300ms, opacity 300ms;">that arrest and prosecute women for drug use during pregnancy</a>,” opening up 48 such cases against pregnant women and mothers in the last 18 month, AL.com reports.</p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 25.3636360168457px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(80, 80, 80);">Butler’s new bill steps beyond existing law, and makes it necessary for suspicious doctors to call the cops <a href="https://legiscan.com/AL/text/HB408/2015" style="color: rgb(56, 56, 56); border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; -webkit-transition: color 300ms, background-color 300ms, opacity 300ms; transition: color 300ms, background-color 300ms, opacity 300ms;">even if their pregnant patients’ drug tests aren’t in yet</a>:</p><blockquote style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); border-color: rgb(207, 207, 207); margin: 10px 10px 10px 20px; padding: 15px 20px 15px 25px; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 3px; border-left-style: solid; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; font-style: italic; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 25.3636360168457px; vertical-align: baseline; quotes: none;"><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">“This bill would specify that if a doctor or other health care professional suspects that a child is being or has been chemically endangered by being unlawfully exposed to a controlled substance, the doctor or health care professional must report his or her suspicion orally to law enforcement within two hours even if results of blood, urine, or other medical tests are not available to the doctor or health care professional within that time period.”</p></blockquote><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 25.3636360168457px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(80, 80, 80);">Megan Skipper, a student and on-the-ground Planned Parenthood spokesperson tells AL.com that Butler’s proposed bill “could lead to racial profiling, since it only requires the suspicion of drug use before notifying the authorities.” Skipper also cautions that fear of being reported to police could discourage some women from seeking prenatal care in the first place.</p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 25.3636360168457px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(80, 80, 80);">Susan Watson, executive director of the state’s ACLU, expresses concern about an incremental criminalization of pregnancy. “Where would it stop?” <a href="http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2015/05/critics_say_changes_to_law_wou.html" style="color: rgb(56, 56, 56); border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; -webkit-transition: color 300ms, background-color 300ms, opacity 300ms; transition: color 300ms, background-color 300ms, opacity 300ms;">Watson wonders</a> about Alabama’s H.B. 408, “Not exercising? Working long hours? Inability to afford regular prenatal care? Are these going to be made a crime next? This legislation opens us up to just that.”</p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 25.3636360168457px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(80, 80, 80);">“I consider this a pro-life bill,” Butler affirms to AL.com. “It is pro-life for the child and pro-life for the mother.”</p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 25.3636360168457px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(80, 80, 80);"><a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/07/23/longterm_study_debunks_myth_of_the_crack_baby/" style="color: rgb(56, 56, 56); border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; -webkit-transition: color 300ms, background-color 300ms, opacity 300ms; transition: color 300ms, background-color 300ms, opacity 300ms;">Decades of research on</a> the long-term effects of prenatal crack cocaine exposure show “no statistically significant differences in the long-term health and life outcomes between full-term babies exposed to cocaine in-utero and those who were not.” Rather, it’s the economic resources of the mother – not any “gestational exposure to cocaine” – that is the “more powerful influence on the outcome of inner-city children,” neonatologist Hallam Hart <a href="http://articles.philly.com/2013-07-22/news/40709969_1_hallam-hurt-so-called-crack-babies-funded-study" style="color: rgb(56, 56, 56); border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; -webkit-transition: color 300ms, background-color 300ms, opacity 300ms; transition: color 300ms, background-color 300ms, opacity 300ms;" target="_blank">tells the Philadelphia Inquirer</a>.</p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 25.3636360168457px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(80, 80, 80);">Spokespeople for National Advocates for Pregnant Women, a non-profit, penned <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/08/opinion/pregnant-and-no-civil-rights.html" style="color: rgb(56, 56, 56); border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; -webkit-transition: color 300ms, background-color 300ms, opacity 300ms; transition: color 300ms, background-color 300ms, opacity 300ms;">an op-ed in the </a><em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/08/opinion/pregnant-and-no-civil-rights.html" style="color: rgb(56, 56, 56); border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; -webkit-transition: color 300ms, background-color 300ms, opacity 300ms; transition: color 300ms, background-color 300ms, opacity 300ms;">New York Time</a>s</em> last year citing hundreds of cases in under a decade where pregnant women had been arrested or otherwise deprived “of their personal liberty.”</p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 25.3636360168457px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(80, 80, 80);">The majority of women arrested during their pregnancies “went to term and gave birth to a healthy baby. This includes the many cases where the pregnant woman was alleged to have used some amount of alcohol or a criminalized drug.”</p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 25.3636360168457px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(80, 80, 80);">Nevertheless, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/08/opinion/pregnant-and-no-civil-rights.html" style="color: rgb(56, 56, 56); border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; -webkit-transition: color 300ms, background-color 300ms, opacity 300ms; transition: color 300ms, background-color 300ms, opacity 300ms;">the advocates warn</a>, incidences of pregnant women arrested for spurious and unscientifically sound reasons are “occurring every week”</p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 25.3636360168457px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(80, 80, 80);">Bulter introduced a bill in April allowing Alabama public school teachers to <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/2015/05/alabama-lawmaker-my-bill-protects-kids-from-learning-they-came-from-a-monkey/" style="color: rgb(56, 56, 56); border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; -webkit-transition: color 300ms, background-color 300ms, opacity 300ms; transition: color 300ms, background-color 300ms, opacity 300ms;">substitute lessons in the assigned science curriculum with religious teachings</a>.</p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 25.3636360168457px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(80, 80, 80);"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/mack.butler.12/posts/10204428483975068?pnref=story" style="color: rgb(56, 56, 56); border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; -webkit-transition: color 300ms, background-color 300ms, opacity 300ms; transition: color 300ms, background-color 300ms, opacity 300ms;">On his Facebook page earlier today</a>, Butler declared “God’s Not Dead!” and shared <a href="http://insider.foxnews.com/2015/05/16/texas-teen-whose-heart-stopped-20-minutes-says-he-saw-jesus" style="color: rgb(56, 56, 56); border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; -webkit-transition: color 300ms, background-color 300ms, opacity 300ms; transition: color 300ms, background-color 300ms, opacity 300ms;">a Fox News story</a> of a teenage boy in Texas whose heart stopped for 20 minutes, during which time he had visions of Jesus Christ. </p>
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