MAP - Ferguson v. City of Charleston
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http://www.mapinc.org/pix/xmlpower.gifUS MA: OPED: The Supreme Court and the Purposes of Medicine
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New England Journal of Medicine, 09 Mar 2006 - What role should physicians have in defining the purposes of their profession -- the functions that medicine should and should not serve? Many observers hold that medicine's aims are for doctors and patients to decide, without interference from the state. But in fact, government limits medicine's purposes in many ways. Doctors cannot prescribe mind-altering substances for recreational use or anabolic steroids to enhance athletic performance. Physicians were once barred from terminating pregnancies, and today, in 49 states, they are not allowed to assist the terminally ill in ending their lives. Bloche, M. GreggNew England Journal of MedicineFerguson v. City of Charleston2006-03-09US: Supreme Court Won't Hear Drug-Test Appeal
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03/n917/a01.html
The State, 17 Jun 2003 - Washington: The U.S. Supreme Court refused Monday to hear a second appeal from a South Carolina hospital in a lawsuit over now-illegal hospital drug tests on pregnant women. The Supreme Court ruled two years ago the tests, once given at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, violated Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure. Some women who tested positive for drugs were arrested from their beds shortly after giving birth. Holland, GinaThe StateFerguson v. City of Charleston2003-06-19US: Transcript: Lynn Paltrow's Visit To The DrugSense Chat Room
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n1904/a01.html
DrugSense, 11 Nov 2001 - DrugSense - Sunday, November 11, 2001, 5:00 PM DrugSenseBot001: Lynn Paltrow of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women program of the Women's Law Project will be our special guest in the DrugSense Chat Room, Sun. Nov 11, 2001 8:00 EDT, 5:00PM Pacific time. See http://www.cultural-baggage.com/schedule.htm for a schedule DrugSenseFerguson v. City of Charleston2001-11-12US: No Clear Message From Supreme Court
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n1543/a04.html
American Medical News, 22 Aug 2001 - Rulings this term on medical marijuana, drug testing and unionization have mixed results for physicians. Justices take on the big issue -- ERISA -- this fall. The U.S. Supreme Court was fairly friendly toward the nation's physicians this year. But it could have been friendlier. In cases that took on issues ranging from whether a public hospital can perform drug tests on pregnant women without their consent and then give police the results, to whether the National Labor Relations Board had properly defined the role of a supervisor in a health care setting, the court set parameters for the practice of medicine. The pattern is: There is no pattern But it's hard to draw conclusions -- or make predictions -- based on this set of decisions on wide-reaching cases from a court that has a reputation for being hard to handicap. "The only pattern you find with the Supreme Court these days is that it will do whatever it wants," said Jay Gold, MD, editor in chief of Legal Medicine Perspectives, published by the American College of Legal Medicine. "Because of the way the court membership is fractured, it's hard to get five people," added Mary Anne Bobinski, director of the Health Law and Policy Institute at the University of Houston Law Center. "The fifth vote is hard to predict." In Ferguson v. Charleston, S.C. the swing votes came down squarely on the side of physicians. In a 6-3 decision, the court said a policy that the Medical University of South Carolina developed "in good faith" with other government agencies violated the Fourth Amendment. The policy, initiated in 1989 and discontinued five years later, led to the arrest of pregnant women and new mothers who tested positive for cocaine. The high court's decision marked the first time justices didn't give the benefit of the doubt to police in a drug enforcement case. Even though the court made the point that there was no physician-patient relationship in the Charleston case, the decision, in and of itself, is supportive of the traditional role of the physician-patient relationship. "It is protecting patients from intrusion," Bobinski said. "Medical professionals, when doing medical testing and screening, should be doing it for medical reasons," added Lawrence Gostin, professor of law and public health at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. Court united, experts divided Legal experts are split on whether physicians and the practice of medicine can claim victory with the court's unanimous ruling on medical marijuana in United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative, et al. The decision addressed the distribution of the drug and stayed out of the medical necessity issue. Albert, TanyaAmerican Medical NewsFerguson v. City of Charleston2001-08-22US: No Clear Message From Supreme Court
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n1490/a10.html
American Medical News, 20 Aug 2001 - Rulings this term on medical marijuana, drug testing and unionization have mixed results for physicians. Justices take on the big issue -- ERISA -- this fall. The U.S. Supreme Court was fairly friendly toward the nation's physicians this year. But it could have been friendlier. Albert, TanyaAmerican Medical NewsFerguson v. City of Charleston2001-08-13US: Transcript: Fetal Protection - Part 1 of 2
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n1119/a03.html
National Public Radio, 20 Jun 2001 - It's TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Juan Williams. In South Carolina today the state Supreme Court heard the case of Brenda Peppers, a woman who was addicted to crack when she had a stillborn child. In 1999, prosecutors charged her with abusing her unborn child by taking cocaine while pregnant and she received a sentence of two years' probation. But Regina McKnight, another South Carolinian, got a more harsh sentence. McKnight's child was also stillborn eight months into her pregnancy. Two weeks ago, McKnight became the first woman ever to be charged with the murder of her stillborn child. She was sentenced to 12 years in prison. National Public RadioFerguson v. City of Charleston2001-06-23US SC: Drug Treatment For Women Available In South Carolina
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n1057/a01.html
The State, 10 Jun 2001 - A Conway woman, Regina McKnight, recently was convicted of killing her unborn fetus by smoking crack cocaine. In March, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Ferguson vs. City of Charleston that hospitals cannot, without the woman's consent or a warrant, test a pregnant woman for drugs with the intention of giving the results to the police. Both of these nationally publicized cases have focused a spotlight on the issue of substance abuse among women in South Carolina. Unfortunately, some of the accompanying coverage has included inaccuracies and misinformation about the availability of treatment for this population. Wade, Rick CThe StateFerguson v. City of Charleston2001-06-14US: Testing Poor Pregnant Women For Cocaine - Physicians As Police
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n976/a05.html
New England Journal of Medicine, 31 May 2001 - In 1989, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall surmised that "declaring a war on illegal drugs is good public policy . . . [but] the first, and worst, casualty of war will be the precious liberties of our citizens."1 The same year, in the midst of President George Bush's "war on drugs," the Medical University of South Carolina initiated a program to screen selected pregnant patients for cocaine and to provide positive test results to the police.2 At a time of high public concern about "cocaine babies," this program seemed reasonable to the university and local public officials. Drug-screening programs in other groups of people had been found constitutional by the Supreme Court,1,3 and it was beginning to appear that the war on drugs would claim the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches, as one of its first casualties.4 In this context, it seemed as if the university's policy might survive a constitutional challenge - and it did in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which in 1999 rejected a challenge to the policy.5 In March 2001, however, the Supreme Court found that the policy was constitutionally deficient.6 Annas, George J.New England Journal of MedicineFerguson v. City of Charleston2001-05-31US: S.C. Verdict Fuels Debate Over Rights of the Unborn
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n966/a02.html
Washington Post, 27 May 2001 - Jury Finds Mother Guilty of Homicide in Stillbirth Throughout her recent three-day trial on charges she had killed her stillborn child by smoking crack cocaine, Regina McKnight was in disbelief that she had even been charged. Pressley, Sue AnneWashington PostFerguson v. City of Charleston2001-05-29More Headlines
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