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Sen. Jane Nelson, a Republican from Lewisville, wants to make it easier to convict drug-addicted new moms by letting prosecutors use evidence found in babies’ bodies against their mothers. The goal of Senate Bill 342, Nelson says, is rehab; the outcome, it seems, would endanger both mother and child.

The bill would create a legal presumption of maternal drug possession if a hard drug, such as cocaine or methamphetamine, is found in a baby’s body within three days of its birth. In Texas, possession of a small amount of a hard drug is a felony carrying a sentence of six months to two years.

First offenders, however, get mandatory probation and drug rehabilitation, according to Texas District and County Attorneys Association spokesman Shannon Edmonds. Edmonds says treatment is the point. He says his organization helped Nelson’s office draft the bill on behalf of prosecutors who were frustrated by their inability to convict addicted mothers of possession. Edmonds says prosecutors have chronic “problems with women who are drug addicts who continue to get pregnant and put children into the foster care system.” With this bill, he says, “we can get them to go through the criminal justice system where they can be required to get treatment.”

Criminalizing drug use is a big medical no-no, particularly when it comes to new mothers, says Dr. Dana Stone, past chair of the Oklahoma Section of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. “Addiction is a medical problem; it needs to be treated medically,” Stone says.

Nelson’s bill does not mandate drug testing for babies at birth, which means doctors would be responsible for deciding when to test and when to report to law enforcement. Stone says the bill would put babies already at risk at even greater risk. “If you have criminal penalties, you will push [women] away from the medical system,” she says. “They will avoid seeking prenatal care, and they will end up with worse outcomes for them and their babies.”

There is also the potential for race and class profiling if only certain babies are being tested for drugs, says Lynn Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women. In South Carolina, the state with the longest history of criminalizing pregnant women and mothers who use drugs, women of color and low-income women have been disproportionately targeted for prosecution.

Even if Nelson’s proposal succeeded in getting more women into treatment, rehab is tricky in Texas. Many counties lack rehab facilities for women. One of the few programs with dedicated beds for women, the Justice Department’s Substance Abuse Felony Punishment, is short on beds. The Legislature increased the program’s funding by $63 million last session, but there is still a waiting list.

The program’s facilities have been praised by policymakers for keeping people from relapsing. Some women who have been through the program, however, say they endured months of psychological and physical abuse, including weeks in the “tighthouse,” sitting up straight with both feet on the ground in hard plastic chairs, prohibited from speaking from morning until night.

That may not be the rehab Nelson has in mind.