Since then, it has been used to prosecute women who give birth to children that test positive for harmful drugs and also THC, the active ingredient in marijuana.
Section 26-15-3.2 of the Alabama legal code discusses the crime of "chemical endangerment of exposing a child to an environment in which controlled substances are produced or distributed."
[4] However, when Hope Elizabeth Ankrom appealed her chemical endangerment conviction using a similar argument, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals upheld her conviction, stating that "Not only have the courts of this State interpreted the term 'child' to include a viable fetus in other contexts, the dictionary definition of the term 'child' explicitly includes an unborn person or a fetus.
When Kimbrough tested positive for methamphetamine, which she admitted to having used once during her pregnancy, she was arrested, charged with chemical endangerment, and sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty.[3]: p.
[6][7] They argued that the court's decisions were not supported or justified by scientific research, and that they were made without any understanding of the nature of drug addiction.[6]: p.