McHenry County State’s Attorney’s Office concerned over Senate bill task force for pregnant persons with substance use disorders

MCHENRY COUNTY — On May 2, McHenry County State’s Attorney Patrick Kenneally expressed his concerns over Senate Bill (SB) 3136 which cleared the Illinois Senate in April and has been sent to the Illinois House for consideration.

Kenneally further elaborated that his concerns stemmed from the 2019 murder of five-year-old Andrew “AJ” Freund, who was beaten to death by his “opioid-addicted mother.”

“One of the only reasons he made it to five years old is because of the law requiring DCFS (Department of Children and Family Services) to inform the state’s attorney’s office (“SAO”) when children are born drug positive,” Kenneally said in a press release statement. “AJ, at the time of his birth, was born with heroin in his system and suffered through weeks of painful withdrawal. After learning of the positive test, the SAO filed a petition in court and began a non-punitive court process wherein all county and service agencies collaborate in making sure the baby is safe and [the] mother recovers.”

According to Kenneally, the Illinois State Medical Society (ISMS), a non-profit consisting of physicians, medical graduates completing residency and fellowship programs, and medical school students, is allegedly “using their influence as a special interest to pass legislation that would eliminate the obligation of DCFS to automatically notify the SAO of a drug positive baby.”

The Illinois Society of Addiction Medicine (ILSAM) stated that SB 3136 would require the development, provision, and monitoring of family recovery plans, with the biggest takeaway from the bill being the creation of the Family Recovery Plans Implementation Task Force within the Department of Human Services (DHS).

The proposed Task Force would be charged with reviewing and developing recommendations to replace punitive policies with notification policies for healthcare professionals reporting a positive toxicology screen of a newborn.

Additionally, ILSAM states that this legislation addresses the health and well-being of pregnant and parenting people, their families, and communities due to substance use disorder (SUD) being a stigmatized medical condition.

Kenneally addresses the basis of the bill as not being scientific, but instead based on political pities “that forbid ‘stigmatizing’ the mother, who though severely endangering her child by using drugs during pregnancy, is merely a faultless victim afflicted with the ‘disease’ of substance abuse.”

“But rest assured, they advise, DCFS, an organization that for decades has been defined by its failure to meet expectations, will be solely responsible for making sure the infant is safe. What could go wrong,” Kenneally added.

Kenneally then illustrates the story of a child born in 2016 to an opioid-positive woman with a long history of drug abuse that resulted in multiple prior treatment tours. He stated that DCFS never notified the McHenry County SAO of the positive drug test despite its statutory responsibility. After the woman told DCFS that she would go back into treatment, Kenneally said that the organization took no other remedial action.

For months afterward, the woman continued her drug habit and was later found overdosing in a bathroom by her child. DCFS was called again and finally notified the SAO of the ongoing neglect of the child, said Kenneally.

“Children born to substance-abusing parents are in a desperate situation. Study after study has shown that substance abuse is one of two primary causes of child abuse and neglect. It is not hard to understand why,” he stated. “A parent in the throes of substance abuse has a compulsion to focus and assign value to one thing above and to the exclusion of all else, which often includes the health and safety of their children. A parent in this state is in no position to respond or react appropriately to the insistent and all-consuming needs of an infant without considerable help and structure that DCFS, as they have demonstrated, does not consistently have the wherewithal to provide.”