Should drinking alcohol during pregnancy be a crime?

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One involves grave risk to multiple sentient beings, the other pickling a parasite with all the autonomical traits of a tapeworm.

Exactly.

Don't let's be silly- a biological parasite is not analogous to those possessing moral personhood.

$468 is a significant percentage of income for many Americans- it is two months' of groceries where I'm from-
especially those living at or below the poverty line,
and those who do not have that much money on hand at one time.
Having color TV with cable is not a sign of wealth, as of the last half-century-
it is a sign a poor person meticulously-budgeted for months or years to afford what many others buy on a whim.
Not that direct-cost (versus, say, thousands of miles) is per se the only factor in accessibility.

There are charities giving money to women who need abortions?
Link?
And here I thought you'd be the type to kick a pregnant lady off a roller coaster.

I don't.

It is only you who thinks such a scenario calls for "blame" at all.

FAS is nevertheless a societal issue when it is large-scale societal groups which fight tooth and nail to restrict abortion access
and like to pretend this will affect the behavior of addicts and drunks.




Either whine about spud-head babes, or the radical notion of abortion accessibility and affordability.

You can't do both.

Last edited by ValentineWiggin on 15 Jun 2011, 5:49 am, edited 1 time in total.

^^^^

Not spam posting or anything?

Nah- observe how my posts are on the thread topic?

I'm sorry- I thought this was a thread calling for personal opinion regarding the role of the state in a specific context.
Forgive me.
And no- I asserted it is the role of the state to provide for the basic needs of its citizens, being that's what it's supposedly there for. One of those needs is health care.

That's what's referred to as particularly-bad neocon rhetoric scripting, even by right wing noise machine "standards".
I'm sorry- I thought this was a thread calling for personal opinion regarding the role of the state in a specific context.
Forgive me.
And no- I asserted it is inconsistent for the state to criminally-penalize women for the "crime" of continuing as an adult citizen over age 21 to consume alcohol post-conception, when that same state does not provide for elective termination of pregnancy, nor even protection of the accessibility of said procedure, and birth control access is likewise limited based on socioeconomic class.

When it does not serve its citizens basic needs.

It is certainly not the role of the state to criminally-prosecute you
for basic human choices on the basis of their resulting in undesirable outcomes
if that same state normally actively-forbids you from opting out of said outcomes.
That was the question, after all...

It isn't.
The vast majority of insurance prescription plans do not cover contraception,
nor do they cover outpatient contraception devices,
and those are the lucky Americans who have insurance.
Although...once again...NO, my "argument" is not reliant on that fact,
since it deals with inconsistencies in government policies, that being the thread topic,
whereas you are obsessed with who's to "blame" when women become pregnant.

Uh-huh, while female-controlled means of birth control are considerably more-expensive, contributing directly to women of reproductive age paying more out-of-pocket for health care.

Women don't have penises. Let's not be silly, and maybe review the actual substance of my post that you're butchering, since issues of "blame" and "responsibility" played no part in it.

Any person who is not by virtue of birth or current circumstance able to do the same.

Can any one give us a reason why a person who becomes indignant at the suggestion that God tells people what they should and should not do [allegedly for their good, certainly in furtherance of his mysterious plans] would welcome the State telling people what they should and should not do [allegedly for their good, certainly in furtherance of its mysterious plans]?

Put the book down, Tony, the answer is not in there.

Class? This is really a very simple question.

Anybody?

This strikes me as getting around many of the objections in this thread. Once the child is born, there is a injured party.

Given that the State exists to serve the neds and interests of its clientele, it follows that the state has an overriding interest in the quality and number of its citizens.

Quality:

All citizens should be tested at birth, before puberty, and at ten year intervals thereafter to detect undesirable physical and mental traits. Undesirables should be sterilized. Reproduction should be monitored to increase the probability of desirable traits.

Any citizen over the age of ten who is unable to contribute meaningfully to the State and who can not produce a certificate that he will be able to contribute within twelve months will be recycled.

Quanity:

If conditions require a larger work force, Sterilized undesirables shall be permitted to live. Reproduction will be encouraged and abortion privileges cancelled.

If conditions require a reduction in the population, undesirables shall be recycled. The rate of reproduction will be slowed and the conditions for mandated abortion tightened.


----------

Nothing new about these proposals, of course. Hard to see why they have not all been implemented yet.

F*ck the State. Since when does the State count more than individuals?

The State is tyranny and slavery. Mankind would be much better off with mutual fairness and justice than it ever was with the State.

ruveyn

BurntOutMom is right.
If a baby is born with injuries due to alcohol/drug use, that's the time when a crime could be proven.

The one involves fantastical faerie stories, but you're absolutely right that Bronze Age pubescent Jewish whores aside,
not many people take kindly to becoming an incubator for Big Brother.

I wasn't trying to get around anything, that was precisely my point. The next line that you left off was "This makes sense to me, but what about the previous 9 months of abuse on the fetus' body?"



That is certainly when it could be proven, my present question to myself is 'should this be the only time that a crime is considered?'

(I'm kind of thinking out loud here... I know a lot might not agree with me, I'm really just trying to put words to what I think on the issue.)

For me, in a lot of cases, I think abortion is the lesser evil. I do view abortion as killing a potential life, and it should (again, just my opinion) be avoided if possible. I view it as a lesser evil because part of what makes us who we are is our experiences, personality, interactions, and such. I guess killing a fetus. to me, is less heinous because you aren't taking them out of this world, you're stopping them from ever reaching it. My point of this is just to explain why I think abortion is an ok option. (and often think it's the best option.)

As I stated before, if you don't obtain an abortion, and your intent is to incubate it to fruition, either to keep or give up for adoption, I think you have a certain responsibility. Past the 1st trimester deadline, you've made a commitment of intent. To be quite honest, I get a little jumpy when women intend to get an abortion and continue to party and drink and such before obtaining it. Some women have a hard time actually having the process done and change their mind at the last minute. I think it would be wisest to operate on an "Anything could happen" premise and abstain until it's final.

When it comes down to it, I don't have any right to dictate what someone else does with their body, pregnant or not. However, I don't have to like or condone it. Making laws governing such are touchy because they could be a stepping stone to taking away all of a woman's rights regarding pregnancy and abortion. Making it illegal to harm a fetus is a hiccup away from making abortion illegal. I get that, and feel that would be a bad step to take. This doesn't change the fact that I think alcohol and drug use during pregnancy is a bad thing and that I wish it could be criminalized without risking abortion rights.

I know this is an old case, but when Diane Downs was arrested, they found a half-empty bottle of Jim Beam in her car with vaginal mucous around the mouth and neck of the bottle. She was in her 6th pregnancy, being arrested for the shooting of her 3 children, in which one child was killed. I know this is a different scenario, and I'm not sure that alcohol damage was done to the resulting child, but should something like this be considered a crime if the damage is done?

What about taking alcohol out of it? My brother has Cerebral Palsy because when his mom was pregnant with him, his biological father beat her severely in the abdomen, causing damage to him as a fetus. Should the fetus be considered in abuse cases of this nature?

A better question would be:

Can any sort of criminalization of this action actually stop it from happening?

Valid point