Should drinking alcohol during pregnancy be a crime?

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Should the mother who drinks alcohol, wether she is addicted or not (it doesn't matter) during pregnancy, be a punishable crime?
My opinion, yes it should. Either don't get pregnant or don't screw up your children.

well, I don't have sympathy towards alcohol and drug addicts, much less when children have to pay for their parents idiocy, especially when it comes to fetal alcohol syndrome.

Last edited by blunnet on 13 Jun 2011, 6:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Any alcohol? I've never, ever seen a pregnant woman get paralytic, for instance. I imagine that most women would either give up drinking during pregnancy or tone it down severely.

The idea of a baby being pickled in gin doesn't immediately come to mind.

I think it's a bad thing to do, but I'm not sure punishment helps.

Also, I see the problem more as women getting pregnant when they drink, rather than women drinking when they are pregnant.

Meh.

As far as I'm concerned, until abortion and birth control access are accessible and affordable to all,
a pickled brain-damaged kid born to an alcoholic mother is the fault of the state.

Within the paradigm where that is the case, that is, one in which any child born to a woman is one she by definition elected to have,
I would think your sentiment quite-justified.

Oh, and a pregnant woman is not a mother by virtue of getting knocked up. She might have existing children, or not, depending.

I have absolutely no love for statism, but using the state as a scapegoat is silly. If a mother drinks when she is pregnant, it is her fault, not the state's.

Using the woman as a scapegoat is silly.
If the state refuses to provide access to reproductive control,
FAS is the state's fault,
not that of women who drink.

See preceding notes regarding emotional rhetoric such as "mother" as applied to pregnant women.

yeah, well, this is a subjective notion of mine, of course, and rather than killing the mother I wanted something to hurt her, anyway, I come up with this given current abortion topics, so one thing that came to mind is that aborting in this case, not being such a bad idea (yeah I am a bit of a facist).

And also the question, if alcohol addicts get arrested for driving while drunk, why not during pregnancy, and what is the difference?

You would need to make alcohol consumption illegal for all women of child-bearing age. Alcohol does the most damage to the fetus in the first month, a time when women don't even know they are pregnant unless they are intentionally trying to get pregnant and therefore monitoring their fertility and pregnancy status with test kits. Having been part of that demographic, I know it's the demographic least likely to drink during pregnancy anyway. I stopped drinking as soon as I started trying to get pregant.

Then you get into the slippery slope. There are all sorts of things that can cause birth defects and miscarriages. I got a dreadful list of them when my pregnancy test came back positive. In addition to alcohol, the pregnant woman must also avoid soft cheese and unpasteurized milk (Listeria, causes miscarriage) and I was warned against several types of fish because of the mercury. I didn't smoke. If I had, I would have been warned off the cigarettes too. There are also all sorts of job-related toxins that (pregnant) women can be exposed to. So there's that too.

Once you have the State trying to protect the unborn by legally prohibiting that which can harm a fetus, you have to put all sorts of restrictions on women who are not only pregnant but could become pregnant. That slope gets slippery at warp speed.

The difference is that the fetus has not been legally defined as a separate person. There is also the problem that alcohol is not the sole cuase of birth defects, nor even necessarily the biggest one. You would need to outlaw many things for pregnant women.

Consumption of alcoholic beveraqes has been a crime here.

Pregnancy may easily be criminalized in my lifetime.

SHOULD?

Like actual people would have input?

Should it be illegal to let your lawn grow?

Should it be illegal to toss a beer can in the trash?

NOBODY outside the inner circles cares about my shoulds.

So if the state gave away condoms you would be in favor of this?????

You say that as if it's the state's responsibility to make sure women don't get pregnant unintentionally. That's what's referred to as a nanny state. I don't know from where you get your code of ethics, but I personally consider people to be responsible for their own actions. At what point does the state cease to be responsible in your eyes? If I jump off a cliff and die, was it the state's fault for not being there to prevent me from doing so?

Anyway, you are basing your argument on the assumption that contraception is not readily available. I don't know what it's like where you live, but condoms are extremely cheap and readily available at every petrol station where I am. Was it the state's responsibility to go out and buy condoms for these women and hand-deliver them on a silver platter?


If I buy flour, water and an oven, and using these I bake a loaf of bread which I sell to someone, who am I stealing from exactly?

More like if the state gave away abortions.

Valentine Wiggin:

"See preceding notes regarding emotional rhetoric such as "mother" as applied to pregnant women."

AND see my preceding notes regarding emotional rhetoric such as wording statutes and discussions to conceal the fact that abortion involves killing a human being. Rhetoric cuts both ways.

I will happily join in urging people not to say mother and murder if you will agree that a human being is being killed.

i feel bad for laughing ...and the feeling hungry ><

While consuming alcohol while pregnant is not advisable, how can it be a crime? The fetus is not a person and has no rights so harm to the fetus is not a criminal act.

ruveyn