Letter to Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater

Oklahoma Letter


Oklahoma County District Attorney
Oklahoma County District Attorney’s Office
320 Robert S. Kerr Ste. 505
Oklahoma City, OK 73102


Dear Oklahoma County District Attorney:

As physicians, health care professionals, medical ethicists, midwives, child-welfare advocates, public health advocates, researchers, and as members of the community, we are greatly concerned about the arrest and prosecution of Theresa Lee Hernandez for first degree murder based on the fact that she suffered a stillbirth at 32 weeks of pregnancy. This unprecedented charge is based on the highly questionable medical claim that the pregnancy loss can be attributed to Ms. Hernandez’ drug use during pregnancy.

While we do not in any way condone a person’s use of alcohol, cigarettes, or other drugs that might affect pregnancy outcome or a person’s ability to parent, our commitment to the care of pregnant women and their children, as well as the interests of society as a whole, requires us to speak out against dangerous and counterproductive measures such as the arrest of pregnant women and new mothers as murderers subject to life imprisonment.

As every leading medical organization to address this issue has concluded, including the American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American College of Nurse Midwives, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, and the March of Dimes, the problem of alcohol and drug use during pregnancy is a health issue best addressed through education and community-based treatment, not through the criminal justice system.

Drug dependency is a medical condition - not a crime. Pregnant women do not experience alcoholism and other drug dependencies because they want to harm their fetuses or because they don’t care about their children.

Like other chronic medical conditions, drug dependency can be controlled and overcome through medical treatment. Medical knowledge about addiction and dependency treatment demonstrates that the majority of dependent people do not, and cannot, simply stop their drug use as a result of threats of arrest or other negative consequences. In fact, threat-based approaches do not protect children. They have been shown to deter pregnant and parenting women not from using drugs, but from seeking prenatal care and drug and alcohol treatment.

Health risks to women, fetuses, and children whether from poverty, inadequate nutrition, exposure to alcohol, drugs, or other factors can be mitigated through prenatal care, counseling, and continued medical supervision. For this to be effective, however, the patient must trust her health care provider to safeguard her confidences and stand by her while she attempts to improve her health (even when those efforts are not always successful). Converting the physician’s exam room into an interrogation chamber and turning health care professionals into agents of law enforcement destroys this trust.

Unfortunately many women in Oklahoma find it difficult to obtain the help they need to overcome their alcohol and drug dependency problems. In fact, according to the federal government’s drug treatment facility locator there are no residential treatment programs designed to meet the needs of pregnant and parenting women – or even women in general -- within 100 miles of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Arresting people with drug related problems not only deters them from seeking help – it is likely to deter others from offering compassion and providing the resources necessary to develop and fund the kinds of treatment that we know can help pregnant women and their families.

Moreover, miscarriages and stillbirths are not an uncommon outcome of pregnancy. Between 1998 and 2002 women and families experienced more than 1,500 stillbirths in Oklahoma. Women who become pregnant should not risk criminal prosecutions for murder should they suffer such a loss. Medically, it is still in many instances impossible to identify the cause of a stillbirth. Subjecting a woman and her family to criminal investigation after experiencing such a loss undermines the provision of health care and the process of recovery for both women and their families.

We therefore ask you, in the interests of maternal, fetal, and child health to drop this dangerous and counter-productive prosecution.

Signed,