Walking Wombs: The Criminalized Construction of Drug-Addicted Mothers

• In Event: 3129 - Section on Medical Sociology Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 22. Topics in Health and Sexuality

Abstract

Although the consequences of the opioid crisis have been the recent subject of research and media attention, few reports have focused on the way in which we talk about the drug-dependent mothers at the center of this crisis. I will elucidate themes of drug dependent women who are mothers as presented by newspaper articles printed in major U.S. news sources. Using newspaper stories spanning 56 years, I argue the dominant themes—the anti-mother, abandonment, erasure, and punishment—currently used to exemplify addicted mothers are in direct opposition with the construction of idealized, intensive mothering, and as such, drug-dependent mothers are uniquely criminalized in ways drug-dependent fathers are not. Villainizing and criminalizing drug-dependent mothers serves as a form harm by reducing access to healthcare and drug-treatment and preventing drug-addicted mothers from parenting their children with community support.

Author

• Della J Winters, University of Tennessee