A Crossville woman has been charged with assault on a fetus, a new law that punishes women who take drugs while pregnant which could harm the fetus. Ashley Raeanne Braddum appeared on the court docket charged with the fetal assault.

There has been much controversy over the law which is set to expire in July as this was a pilot law to see how much effect it had on reducing the number of babies born with drug related defects as a result of mothers using drugs during pregnancy. The law was originally passed in response to the growing number of babies born with “neonatal abstinence syndrome,” a group of symptoms that can occur when babies are in withdrawal from exposure to narcotics.  There is a bill working its way through committee right now to make the law permanent.

Meanwhile, a Knoxville woman is trying to convince lawmakers in Nashville to do away with the law entirely. Brittany Hudson was one of the first women charged under Tennessee’s fetal assault law. Her baby was born drug-dependent and went through withdrawal.  Hudson has now been clean for 13 months.  She believes those mothers need help and says putting them behind bars isn’t treatment.  She attended a House Criminal Justice subcommittee meeting Tuesday that took up the issue, but action was delayed for another week.

The State has been tracking cases since the law went into effect and the data shows there is a decrease in drug dependent births which prompted lawmakers to put forth a bill to make it a permanent law.   While Tennessee is the only state that has passed a bill allowing women to be charged with assault if they use narcotics while pregnant, others, such as Alabama and South Carolina, use interpretations of existing laws to prosecute pregnant women who use drugs.

Almost 1,000 babies were born drug-dependent in Tennessee in 2015.