近距离内射合集

I was saddened to read of the New Mexico Supreme Court鈥檚 decision throwing out the American Civil Liberties Union鈥檚 suit against the governor and the Children, Youth and Families Department鈥檚 policy of removing all newborn babies from their mothers if there is evidence of drug use during pregnancy. While some are celebrating this as a step to protect children, I view it as one likely to endanger far more children than it protects.

The governor issued her mandate after citing two instances in which drug-exposed newborns died after leaving the hospital with their mothers. She estimates that 125 or more children have been removed and placed in foster homes since she made the unilateral decision.

State law does not define drug use by a parent as evidence of child abuse. I was present for that debate on the Senate floor when an attempt to add it to the Children鈥檚 Code was rejected over 15 years ago. It was rejected because state and federal laws and well-established best practices nationally consider drug addiction an illness deserving treatment 鈥� not a crime deserving punishment.

The governor鈥檚 mandate punishes by executive order a condition that is not considered a crime in our statutes. Removing a baby from their mother in this fashion is likely to lead some mothers to avoid hospitals when it is time to deliver. Instead, we should encourage such births in precisely the setting where drug-exposed infants and mothers can receive the best supportive services.

It is striking that the governor (and now the court) seems to view this situation as binary: Either leave babies with drug-using mothers and hope nothing bad will happen or take the babies away and keep them safe. Yet there is a well-established third option that most states are following: providing these families with high-quality, intensive and fully resourced support services. This includes daily visits from skilled home visitors; financial, nutritional, transportation and housing assistance; and both mental and physical healthcare.

Am I dreaming to think this could work? Not at all, and we have at the University of New Mexico a two-decade long program of precisely this type of assistance for new moms and their babies who were exposed to drugs: the Milagros program. Dr. Andy Hsi and his staff demonstrated over the years that there is a third option, a far better option, than the only two the governor appears to have considered. Did she even check with the experts at UNM before issuing her mandate? Hsi recently passed away, but the program he developed is still available for replication and expansion. It is still assisting young mothers to be loving, effective parents and to avoid drug use.

And for those who consider foster care a safer environment than being left with the birth mother, I would point out the track record of foster families keeping children safe in New Mexico is far from spotless. Toss in the trauma suffered by children when moved from home to home when available slots are overwhelmed, and I definitely worry that the governor and now the court have left children less safe.

The third option is much more difficult than simply removing children. It takes a lot of work to build a relationship with frightened, addicted new mothers. It is hard to earn their trust. And it requires a lot of resources and of navigating a too-complicated service system. But in the long run, that is what CYFD was created to do. Not to mindlessly tear babies from birth moms and place them with strangers. We owe it to those kids to do the best, not the easiest.

Jerry Ortiz y Pino is a former state senator of Albuquerque. He previously was the head of the Protective Services Division at CYFD.