MADISON- Attorney General Brad Schimel is currently working with the state Solicitor General, Misha Tseytlin, to try to enforce a law recently found unconstitutional in federal court. The 1998 law they are trying to enforce allows the state to place pregnant women suspected of drug or alcohol abuse, be it current or past, in custody, and allows the state to subject these women to involuntary medical procedures.
Bruce Vielmetti at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports:
Wisconsin’s attorney general on Tuesday asked a federal appeals court for an emergency order allowing the state to continue action against 25 women under its so-called cocaine mom law, recently found unconstitutional, while the state asks the U.S. Supreme Court to get involved.
A federal judge in Madison last month sided with Tamara Loertscher, who filed a civil rights suit after she was jailed 18 days while pregnant after admitting past drug use to officials in Taylor County and refusing to voluntarily check into a residential treatment center. Loertscher was represented by the National Advocates for Pregnant Women.
In a motion to the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, state Solicitor General Misha Tseytlin wrote that he intends to ask the nation’s highest court to block U.S. District Judge James Peterson’s injunction against enforcement of the law.
Read more at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
