Court Opinion

ID: 9615089
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:31:14.35737+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:21:22.927163
License: Public Domain

MOORE, Justice:
I concur with the dissent in this case but write separately to express my concerns with today’s decision.
In my view, the repeated failure of the legislature to pass proposed bills addressing the problem of drug use during pregnancy is evidence the child abuse and neglect statute is not intended to apply in this instance. This Court should not invade what is clearly the sole province of the legislative branch. At the very least, the legislature’s failed attempts to enact a statute regulating a pregnant woman’s conduct indicate the complexity of this issue. While the majority opinion is perhaps an argument for what the law should be, it is for the General Assembly, and not this Court, to make that determination by means of a clearly drawn statute. With today’s decision, the majority not only ignores legislative intent but embarks on a course of judicial activism rejected by every other court to address the issue.
As discussed in the Chief Justice’s dissent, we are bound by the rules of statutory construction to strictly construe a criminal statute in favor of the defendant and resolve any ambiguity in her favor. State v. Blackmon, supra. I cannot accept the majority’s assertion that the child abuse and neglect statute unambiguously includes a “viable fetus.” If that is the case, then why is the majority compelled to go to such great lengths to ascertain that a “viable fetus” is a “child?”
Contrary to the majority’s strained analysis in this case, one need look no further than the language of § 20-7-50 to clearly discern legislative intent that the statute apply only to chil*22dren in being. “Legal custody” is not a qualification applicable to a viable fetus. I simply disagree the legislature intended a statute entitled “Unlawful neglect of child or helpless person by legal custodian” to render a pregnant woman criminally liable for any type of conduct potentially harmful to the unborn fetus.
In construing this statute to include conduct not contemplated by the legislature, the majority has rendered the statute vague and set for itself the task of determining what conduct is unlawful. Is a pregnant woman’s failure to obtain prenatal care unlawful? Failure to quit smoking or drinking? Although the majority dismisses this issue as not before it, the impact of today’s decision is to render a pregnant woman potentially criminally liable for myriad acts which the legislature has not seen fit to criminalize. To ignore this “down-the-road” consequence in a case of this import is unrealistic. The majority insists that parents may already be held liable for drinking after a child is born. This is untrue, however, without some further act on the part of the parent. A parent who drinks and then hits her child or fails to come home may be guilty of criminal neglect. The mere fact of drinking, however, does not constitute neglect of a child in being.
The majority attempts to support an overinclusive construction of the child abuse and neglect statute by citing other legal protections extended equally to a viable fetus and a child in being. The only law, however, that specifically regulates the conduct of a mother toward her unborn child is our abortion statute under which a viable fetus is in fact treated different^ from a child in being.1
The majority argues for equal treatment of viable fetuses and children, yet its construction of the statute results in even greater inequities. If the statute applies only when a fetus is “viable,” a pregnant woman can use cocaine for the first twenty-four weeks2 of her pregnancy, the most dangerous period for the fetus, and be immune from prosecution under *23the statute so long as she quits drug use before the fetus becomes viable. Further, a pregnant woman now faces up to ten years in prison for ingesting drugs during pregnancy but can have an illegal abortion and receive only a two-year sentence for killing her viable fetus.3
Because I disagree with the conclusion § 20-7-50 includes a viable fetus, I would affirm the grant of post-conviction relief.

. A woman may have a legal abortion of a viable fetus if necessary to preserve her health, S.C.Code Ann. § 44~41-20(c) (1985), while, of course, she may not justify the death of a child in being on this ground.

. Viability is presumed to occur no sooner than the twenty-fourth week of pregnancy. S.C.Code Ann. § 44 — 41—10(1) (1985).

. S.C.Code Ann. § 44-41-80(b) (1985).