You quoted the article as reporting on “accusations” that the mother tested positive for meth while pregnant. Your interlocutor seems to have glossed over that since it is possible for a party to claim something without evidence backing it up.
But say they did have evidence that she ingested meth. In a state like Alabama, there is a strong incentive to skew evidence to support the widespread belief that women don’t have a choice over whether they reproduce or not: if you have sex, then you must have your kid.
So, your interlocutor was merely calling into question the source that produced the accusations, as well as any other sources that produced evidence that showed she ingested meth recently while pregnant, possibly leading to the accusations.
The point about whether foster care is more or less sufferable than dying pre- or postnatal is not what your interlocutor was addressing.