NASHVILLE – A Tennessee judge has pulled the plug on a controversial program that encouraged female and male inmates with drug addiction problems to cut the length of their jail sentences through voluntarily undergoing birth control procedures.
Amid a growing legal uproar, White County General Sessions Court Judge Sam Benningfield of Sparta filed an order Wednesday reversing his earlier May 15 order.
He had hoped the program would help combat the number of babies in the Upper Cumberland Plateau community born with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome.
“I wasn’t on a crusade,” Benningfield said Thursday in a telephone interview. “I don’t have a ‘mission.’ I thought I could help a few folks, get them thinking and primarily help children.”
Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome is a condition in which a baby is born with withdrawal symptoms after being exposed to addictive substances as a fetus while inside the mother’s womb.