Word: behaviorisms
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...term harder to dodge. Says White House aide Roger Porter, who helped design the package: "The people who are committing these crimes are not dumb. They know what the chances are of getting caught and getting sent to prison, and as we increase those odds, we can change their behavior...
Citizens have been encouraged to report any suspicious behavior by neighbors, particularly if it involved contact with foreigners. Former Chinese Red Guards say most of the targets of the Cultural Revolution were actually victims of petty local vendettas. In the Soviet Union informing on one's fellow man was taken so far that Pavlik Morozov became a national hero for ratting on his father. And all across the socialist world workers were repeatedly assured that they need not fear -- that no matter how little they worked, no one would live better than they...
That approach, however, has raised the ire of many legal experts and women's rights groups. "These cases are attacks on women," says Lynn Paltrow of the A.C.L.U.'s Reproductive Freedom Project. "If states pass laws that make maternal behavior a crime against the fetus, and if the state can create prenatal police patrols for cocaine use, then where would they draw the line?" Opponents note that alcohol use, smoking and other kinds of maternal conduct have also been shown to damage fetuses. Says Paltrow: "For some women, standing on their feet all day is harmful. Will they arrest them...
...unspoken one: an end run around the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark abortion case, Roe v. Wade. That 1973 decision found that the rights of the mother, rather than the fetus, are primary. Says Leslie Harris of the A.C.L.U.: "Those who want to rush in and criminalize the behavior of women are pushing a different agenda than prenatal care. If they can persuade the courts that a woman who chooses to carry a child to term has obvious legal obligations, how could she at the same time have the right to abort the fetus...
With no end in sight for the current epidemic of drug use, it appears that pregnant women will increasingly be held accountable for behavior that jeopardizes their babies' health. "These cases are really mounting," says Harvard law professor Kathleen Sullivan, "and prosecutors are going to go wild until the courts stop them." Despite criticism of his actions, Winnebago County state's attorney Paul Logli, who is prosecuting the manslaughter and drug charges against Green, stands by his policy. Says he: "This is not a fetal-rights case or a pro-choice case or a pro-life case. We're dealing...