Here is an interesting article where some over zealous prosecutors are using a statute to go after women who have miscarried, had a stilborn baby or lost a baby shortly after birth on “chemical endangerment”, a statute that was meant to protect children from parents who cook meth at home.

Typically, a state may test tissues from a still birth or birth (generally poor women) for metabolites of drugs, but not the drugs themselves.  Many food items can mimic illegal drugs, as we know (poppy seeds, second hand smoke from marijuana users, etc.) all types of legal activities can be absorbed into the mother’s blood system and turn up as a “metabolite  of a drug” and then the mother might be prosecuted.

Prosecutors must be told to only prosecute when active, verifiable drugs are found in a woman’s system, and even then, it would seem better to send a   woman…