If the woman had an abortion before it became too late for a late term, whatever that may be where she is at, she would be AJ squared away as far as the law is concerned. Kinda rubbed me the wrong way to write that stark fact, since I personally consider abortion to be murder.

Don't we have to. Even if a fetus or embryo has no formal rights, its welfare could be considered. Until they make an incubator that can carry an embryo or fetus, the embryo/fetus's rights are in conflict with the mother's. If the doctors determine the mother should be on bed rest and she doesn't comply, it's in the child's interest to tie the mother down.

My personal opinion is we shouldn't make someone do anything to save another life, but we could ask nicely. If there were a machine that could care for the fetus, I think it would be a crime to kill it when there was an option to save it.

Well, it does raise a lot of questions, all of which should have been answered before the law was passed.

Does an unborn human have _any_ rights?

What if by the ingestion of a compound, she could have altered the fetus into a congenital slave, a being without self-identtified rights?

I appreciate the ironic contradiction that apparently it is wrong to _harm_ an unborn person, but perfectly all right to kill one.

If abortion is murder why is miscarriage not manslaughter?

I also must nod to the bitter irony that the substance in question (methamphetamine) was not actually covered by the law. In Michigan (and other states), while representatives posture for the press, the actual bills are written by the Legislative Service Bureau. The LSB's job is to produce bills that can become enforceable laws. Apparently, the legislature of Tennessee does not have such a support function.

We shouldn’t. It is an individual choice. As a society we can set boundaries but we shouldn’t make choices.
If we were all in this together as a choice then we could ask morons to stop having children along with the drug addicts.

This article acts like this is unheard of. The law may appear to be the ‘first’ of it’s kind by the wording but it is in fact not. There are thirty years worth of laws on the books in various states to jail the mothers and take their children away if they abused drugs while pregnant. Big scare for many wanna-bef moms in California thirty years ago during the cocaine spree.

If women are incubators when pregnant, they should require permission to work around chemicals, electricity, law enforcement, well they should need permission to do anything. Stay home and keep that baby safe. I'm making the slippery slope fallacy, but we need to decide where we draw the line. When a woman gets pregnant, just how much of her rights does she forfeit. We should decide. And the "we" should be mostly women who are of childbearing age.

This is where government intrusion is easy. They can claim they are protecting babies and the unborn children. I guess if she had an abortion she would have been fine.