The clinician is often faced with a difficult ethical decision when treating pregnant psychiatric patients in the third trimester. If the illness, psychotropic medication, or abused drug poses a threat to the healthy birth of a viable fetus, is the clinician responsible for the mother’s welfare only, or also for that of the viable fetus? Further, if the clinician considers the fetus a responsibility, does psychiatric or juvenile law take precedence? We will present a series of cases which first led to a moral responsibility toward the fetus/neonate, then to abortive psychiatric court intervention, and finally to the successful intervention of the juvenile court. The law in the State of California regarding psychiatric commitments and the role of the juvenile court in attempting to protect children who have been or are likely to be abused, abandoned, or deprived of the necessities of life is outlined as background for this contentious issue. If a person is to be committed involuntarily to a secure mental health facility by the Psychiatric Division of the Superior Court, that person must be found beyond a reasonable doubt to be either gravely disabled or of danger to himself or others within the contemplation of the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act (LPS). Gravely disabled, according to LPS, means that because of a specific mental disorder a person cannot provide himself with the necessities in life. In order to be found to be of danger to himself or others it is necessary to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that such danger is caused by a specific mental disorder (Conservatorship ofRoulet). In determining the definition of a specific mental disorder the litigants often use the DSM III Manual. LPS, as interpreted by the courts, also entitles the person who is to be committed to receive a jury trial on demand (Conservatorship of Roulet). It is clear that, even when a person is committed under these demanding standards, he/she may obtain release by filing a petition for a writ of habeas corpus during any moment of lucidity. Therefore, if a patient with paranoid schizophrenia takes a psychotropic drug, such as chlorpromazine, or a patient with manic depressive illness takes a psychotropic drug, such as lithium carbonate, and the drug pro-