Should drinking alcohol during pregnancy be a crime?

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Here's another relevant article. Why is this being reported in a Brittish newspaper, but not in the U.S.?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/ju ... er-charges

Does a woman's right to kill her unborn child extend all the way to negligent homicide?

It's always dangerous to use wikipedia as a source without checking references. For example, in one of the references:


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8800397

In other words, one drink per day during pregnancy is enough to cause problems for the child.


Taking care of a child is an even bigger behavioral adjustment. Women having children should be prepared to make major adjustments.


No; it should at most apply to smoking during a pregnancy that leads to a child. If the pregnancy is terminated before birth, no actual person other than the smoker is harmed, so that shouldn't be illegal.

Last edited by psychohist on 07 Jul 2011, 6:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think there is a question of intent here.

If you happen to live in a locale where killing your unborn child is legal, that essentially means that the state has decided that harming a foetus with intent to kill is accepted under law, and perhaps then only under certain circumstances or with certain methods.

I'm not here to say that this is wrong. I think it's a woman's own personal choice whether to commit prenatal infantacide.

But this law perhaps says nothing about negligently harming a foetus with no intent, or harming a foetus with intent to kill, disfigure, or render stupid.

This basically seems to imply that if we wish to look at this from a legal standpoint, we have to either clarify explicitly each instance when killing a child is permissible, or clarify when we consider it to be a person or not.

Keep in mind here that a large percentage of fertilized eggs do not lead to a viable pregnancy and are quite naturally aborted by the womb.

"Prenatal infanticide" is an oxymoron. If it hasn't been born yet, it isn't an infant.

"Prenatal feticide", maybe.

A fetus is not a person so killing a fetus is not murder. It is not even homicide.

Definition of homicde:


1. The killing of one person by another.
2. A person who kills another person.

ruveyn

Last edited by ruveyn on 07 Jul 2011, 7:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Tomayto, tomahto. Having a Y chromosome and lacking a sexual partner, I have the luxury of acting as a disinterested spectator.

Having a right to do something horrible (neccisary though it may be) doesn't imply a right to be protected from hearing other's opinions about it.

This isn't about abortion per se, rather just abuse with potential fatal consequences - but still, the question of "when is it a person" comes up.

One also has to wonder whether there is an implication of whether women with certain physiological shortcomings should be encouraged to sterilize themselves or avoid sexual contact, as pregnancy itself would pose an unreasonable threat to a theoretical person.

Edit: For the record i favor revolutionizing the adoption process to make it easier for people who want children but can't procreate to adopt infants. But i have no suggestions for how to crack that nut - I have just met too many people who waited for years to adopt a (white) baby, and seen too many screwed up kids in the foster system who were raised by parents who were unwilling, unprepared, unable, or any combination of the three.

I think you've missed that women won't KNOW they're pregnant during the first month of pregnancy (most doctors declare that the previous menstruation is the date of the start of the pregnancy) - this means women who have no intention of having children STILL have to make a major life adjusment just to avoid getting hit with 'harming and unborn child.'

Your assumption is that the woman knows and wants a child. This is quite, quite often not the case. If I were pregnant today, I wouldn't know. I had wine last week with my family. Should I be prosecuted?

For those that said a child being born with FAS would be proof of a crime - you would have to prove that the woman knew she was pregnant when she drank. Drinking during the first trimester is the most dangerous for a child. And, as noted, a woman will not immediately know she is pregnant. Thus either women don't get to drink at at all, or they shouldn't be labeled criminals for lack of knowledge.

If you misuse the term "infant" to mean "fetus", expect to be corrected. There's a reason there are two different words for the two different meanings.


I think you've missed that women who only find out they are pregnant after they've likely caused the fetus harm always have the option of terminating the pregnancy.

Not in every state of the USA, and hardly in every country in the world. This means that the economic reality for many women is that they have no legal way that they can realistically terminate.

In every state of the U.S., women have the option of terminating pregnancy to at least 20 weeks, which is long past the time when they should be aware they are pregnant.

As for other parts of the world, there are also other parts of the world where women are already prohibited from drinking or other such activities at all times. I would argue that those laws are too broad, and also that they should have abortion rights where they don't, but I think those issues go beyond the scope of this thread.

This is a better argument but even so - you'd have to catalogue every drink you took. Did I drink that wine two weeks ago or three? Even a glass or two is enough to harm. Some women would have to terminate every pregnancy just to be certain, and a lot of places will refuse to abort another pregnancy if a woman has already had one or two abortions in the past.

The obvious solution is for all reproduction to be handled at central state-run facilities. where eggs and sperm can be combined to provide optimal genetic mixes for the State's needs for new humans and spare parts.

Embryos designated as replacement citrizens will be gestated in controlled conditions until "birth", and then transferred to creches for training.

Any human female who allows an unauthorized egg to be fertilized will be apprehended, as will the sperm donor, after DNA identification. They will be sterilized, if of significant use to the State, or recycled.


Pretty common proposal in some strands of sci fi. We are about ready with the technology. That should eliminate the risk of pitterpattering feet making workers less productive.

Obviously, any woman with a drug or alcohol problem in any state with one of these 'fetal harm' laws should abort asap, lest she end up in jail for a decade or two after miscarrying. Or even any woman without a drug or alcohol problem, because a miscarriage is clearly always the woman's fault - and a miscarriage is always possible up until the birth of an infant. Better for the mother to just abort and be safe, especially if she already has children to care for.

People seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that any consumption of alcohol during pregnancy will create risks for the foetus. This is an uncritical and potentially incorrect view.

Studies have demonstrated that consumption of 2 to 14 drinks per week by pregnant women will not present any elevation in risk for giving birth to a child with malformations or FAS. That being said, it should not be assumed that consumption at or under this level is "safe"--indeed, there is no "safe" level of alcohol consumption for anyone, pregnant or otherwise. There is, however, good evidence that consumption at low levels can be undertaken with minimal risk.

The obstetricians that I have talked to all take the view that a pregnant woman should have no hesitation in talking to her obstetrician about alcohol. Abstaining from alcohol (particularly before conception and during the first trimester) is a prudent and conservative approach, but an otherwise healthy, pregnant woman can likely safely consume small amounts of alcohol during her pregnancy.

In the absence of a clear indication of what constitutes a reasonable course of action for pregnant women, the use of the criminal law to impose an arbitrarily rigid standard appears to me to be misplaced.

I will fully admit that I did drink alcohol when I was pregnant, and I knew that I was pregnant.

I enjoy a bit of rum with eggnog. And so I had, at most, 1/4 oz. of rum in some warm eggnog. I was about 2 - 3 months along. My doctor told me (before I had any, because I asked) that this would not be a problem. And (*gasp*) I had this same type of drink several times (no more than one a day, and I would say I had it about 5 times in total while pregnant).

Also, consider that there's alcohol in mouthwash, and it can get absorbed into your system just by sloshing it around in your mouth.

This begs two questions:

1. Should I be put in jail, even though I had a full-term, healthy baby?
2. Should mouthwash for pregnant (or "pre-pregnant") women be made illegal?

Also, I breastfed and drank. But I preplanned. I would pump milk beforehand, and prepare bottles for my baby. Then, the night of the event (once, a Christmas party, another was a wedding) I would drink and, when I got home, pump off my breast milk and discard it. I did this until about 12 hours after my last drink. In the meanwhile, my baby had the pre-pumped milk. So... here are another few question:

3. Should I be put in jail for drinking while breastfeeding?
4. Should the holder of the liquor license for those events be held legally responsible for serving alcohol to a breastfeeding woman?

If someone conducted herself the same way as I did while pregnant and breastfeeding, and her child was later diagnosed with a learning disability, should we point the finger at the mother? Because it just may have had something to do with consuming 1/4 oz of rum every once in a while? Or, god forbid, using mouthwash? Doesn't this sound ridiculous to anyone?

LKL has pointed out some frightening stories about the drive to impose a lack of basic human rights for pregnant women. And no one here has said much (if anything) about them. You think you're an advocate for human rights? Then keep in mind women, whether "pre-pregnant", pregnant, or post-natal, are HUMAN BEINGS with the legal rights of PERSONS.