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Women who sued over hospital cocaine testing policy speak out

By Raju Chebium
CNN.com Correspondent

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Patricia Williams, 47, was one of 10 women who sued over a policy instituted by the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston under which pregnant women who tested positive for cocaine use were told to get treated or go to jail.

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She traveled to Washington on Wednesday to attend the oral arguments in Crystal Ferguson v. City of Charleston, where Williams and nine others claim their Fourth Amendment right to be free from "unreasonable searches" was violated by the MUSC policy.

After arguments, Williams told CNN.com that Shirley Brown, the MUSC official who came up with the idea for the policy to protect fetuses from medical problems due to the mothers' cocaine use, threatened her with prison time even if she kicked the habit.

"Shirley Brown told me it didn't matter what I did or did not do," Williams said, adding that she has four healthy children and the baby she had after being tested for cocaine is now 10 years old.

Paula Hale, 37, another plaintiff, said she was given one hour of counseling and "the rest of the time (I) was surrounded by addicts."

Both women said they did not know their urine samples would be specially screened for cocaine. Their lawyer Priscilla Smith said during oral arguments that MUSC officials tested those women they suspected were cocaine users. The two women also said they were never told they were being subjected to the cocaine test.

The women went for prenatal care expecting confidentiality, but under the policy MUSC doctors and other health-care workers were forced to breach that confidentiality, said Wendy Anderson, director of South Carolina Advocates for Pregnant Women, who has been acting as a spokeswoman for the plaintiffs.

"It's one thing to go to the doctor and have the doctor analyze anything in your bloodstream," Anderson said in an interview last month. "What happened to these women was that their results were turned over to the police without their consent. That's completely unacceptable."

Robert Hood, the lawyer representing the city of Charleston, MUSC and other parties named in the complaint, said the women did give written consent, an issue over which Supreme Court justices grilled him Wednesday, saying their understanding was otherwise. MUSC officials have refused comment on the case, referring questions to Hood.

South Carolina Attorney General Charles Condon, a Charleston prosecutor at the time the policy was implemented in 1989, said even if the high court rules against the city, South Carolina will protect fetuses under a child-abuse statute that grew out of the MUSC policy. Under that policy, women found to endanger the lives of the fetuses through drug use or other unhealthy behavior can be prosecuted.

"In our state, and I say this proudly, we do recognize the rights of the unborn," Condon said after oral arguments. "Society owes it to our children."

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