You can’t be a bartender and also enforce healthy ideals on your customers! There are many many more cases where you should not serve this person or that person.
Anyway I would expect a bar to be in business to make money and other than that, the bartender should follow the law - which can be different state to state.
Bartenders are in a bar to serve alcohol to adults, they are not there to enforce their personal fringe medical theories on people. The idea that ‘even one drop’ of alcohol is bad for a developing baby is not based on scientific fact, but on puritan fearmongering, and so it’s not reasonable for a bartender to use it as the basis for denying someone service. And since pregnant women are a protected class under anti-discrimination laws, the bartender is actually engaged in illegal discrimination. It’s not really any different than a bartender deciding not to serve a black person liquor because he ‘knows’ those people get violent if they drink a lot, or refusing to serve a native american because he ‘knows’ Indians are genetically all alcoholics and he’s not going to contribute to the ‘firewater’ abuse.
I’m also really not sure how the bartender is supposed to know that a woman is pregnant and not some other condition without doing a medical exam that he’s not actually qualified to do.
Ironically, entering the third trimester is probably about the safest time to drink. If you want to up the ethical quandary, suggest that you somehow know at about 5-10 weeks. That’s when lots of the developmental Stuff that alcohol is more likely to affect is happening.
any state where male non-medically trained politicians have decided to play woman’s doctor.
For example:
These laws are much more common, forcing women to carry a dying baby to term:
http://archive.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/20120702arizona-abortion-fetal-defect-cases.html
And these ones are being passed or proposed by the GOP in quite a few states, no exceptions at all, no abortions no matter what:
http://nbc4i.com/2016/04/15/bill-to-completely-ban-abortion-with-no-exceptions-advances-through-alabama-legislature/
But, you know, that wasn’t really my point. My point was, you don’t know anything about this person other than it looks to you as if she is a pregnant woman, and therefore refusing to serve her is condescending bullshit. She could be carrying a dead or dying fetus and doesn’t care in the least if what she does/consumes damages it further. She could be carrying a much-wanted viable fetus and her doctor suggested drinking (as one person noted above). Or for all you know, “she” is actually a transvestite with ascites from advanced liver cancer, someone who really shouldn’t be drinking. Unlike pregnant women. The evidence suggests it’s perfectly fine to drink in moderation during mid to late pregnancy. Unclear for very early pregnancy.
Thought about this in relation to the law that was just passed, my assumption is not many bartenders were refusing service because they thought a woman could be pregnant, sounds like a good way of seriously upsetting customers and getting your ass fired without the need for any legislation. Then again I don’t frequent bars in New York so who knows?
Poll is interesting, looks like I kinda wasted my time with more than two options, a very all or nothing approach.
And the chances that someone gets through the first two trimesters - when its hard to tell for sure - without drinking enough to do damage and then in the third trimester throws caution to the winds and starts chugging Everclear are about zero. You don’t develop a drinking problem in your third trimester.
So someone needs to give the OTOH …
Bartenders are liable under various states “dram shop liability” laws for harms resultant of their serving alcohol to those who should not be served.
If one accepts, as many states have, that it is ethical for a bartender to refuse to serve an adult who appears to already be intoxicated, in fact not only ethical to allow that refusal but unethical for the bartender to continue to serve that person, specifically because doing so might cause harms, then why is it unethical for a bartender to defer to the CDC and refuse to serve on the basis of not wanting ethical (albeit not likely legal, but who knows) responsibility for potential harm being caused as much as would be by serving a visibly intoxicated patron? Of note:
Is a bartender ethically obligated to do that which they percieve as enabling such behaviors? This is not refusing a medical service here.
Because, on this issue, the CDC is full of shit.
Also because fetuses aren’t people.
And because pregnant women are people capable of fully rational and legally responsible thought, unlike drunk people. We don’t need our bartenders to act on our behalf because we’re mentally impaired.
I am happy that you are willing to take the position that you are more expert than the CDC but would not expect a bartender to have the same degree of … confidence. Maybe they did not read the same op ed by the professor of philosophy that should clearly and without question be deferred to above and beyond the CDC guidance?
The fetus may or may not be a legal person at whatever point in pregnancy it is, but as the fetus is not with 100% certainty being aborted one has to assume it will become a ful fledged person.
The distinction between an intoxicated individual being impaired in decision making has some appeal to me. It then reduces the question to this: should rational people be able to make any decision they want, even ones that might harm others (albeit others without current personhood or legal rights, be it an unborn human or a pet), and are others obligated to help them implement those decisions if they are uncomfortable doing so?
And if ANYONE is binge drinking and the bartender has an ethical responsibility for them to stop (because presumably, if you are binge drinking, then you are obviously intoxicated after the third or so drink - unless you slam half a dozen shots before they take effect - and it probably isn’t ethical to let someone slam half a dozen shots either) - then that applies to anyone, not just the women.
Yes.
“Obligated” was not in the OP.
Um, the op discussed NY law making it illegal to not serve her. The spectrum between"Legally obligated to." and “I see no problem.” to “I am uncomfortable doing so but given that my job is to serve drinks I would; i.e. I am obligated to do so.” to “I am so uncomfortable doing so that I would refuse and feel no obligation to do so.” and points between are included as part of the op.
Your position that the rights of rational people to make any decision they want, even ones that might harm others should not be restricted in any way is noted. I’ll go on record as disagreeing with that and would instead stake out the position that there is a balance to be struck.
What is your take on the NY law? Should a bartender have the right to make the decision to not serve a pregnant woman?
Because discriminating against people on the basis of their sex or perceived condition is wrong, and completely unethical. This is especially true when by your own articles the dangerous time for drinking is also the time when the bartender really cannot tell that the person is pregnant. Unless the bartender is going to do significant medical checks (which he isn’t licensed to perform), he doesn’t actually know that any particular patron is a woman, whether she’s pregnant, and how far along she is. He doesn’t know what other conditions she has, or what any medical professionals have recommended, all he has is his prejudice.
It’s patronizing bullshit hiding behind concern, not anything remotely legitimate.
Personally, I would like to charge a bartender refusing to serve a pregnant woman on this basis with practicing medicine without a license, though I know that wouldn’t actually fly in the real world. Women are actually people and get to make their own decisions about their health without having to justify such decisions to a bartender.
So on one hand your bartender is willing to diagnose pregnancy and impose restrictions on what a woman is allowed to do just on his own judgement, but is also so insecure that he can’t possibly question anything that might be an authority? Exactly how is it reasonable for him to doubt the possibly pregnant woman, her doctor, all of the medical authorities (like, oh, everyone in Europe) who disagree with the CDC stance, but to be absolutely, completely sure that a not very definite statement by the CDC means he shouldn’t serve her?
Seems far more likely that he’s just a patronizing, control-freak jerk.
too bad we can’t charge the GOP for practicing medicine without a license.
If you know a man has children would you refuse to sell him cigarettes because he might smoke them around his children?
Anyone who can read - even a professor of philosophy - can look at the available evidence, research, and studies done up to this point and rightly conclude that there is not much evidence backing up the idea that any drinking in pregnancy causes harm. Here’s an MD writing the same thing on Harvard Medical School’s blog: “How clear is the medical evidence supporting strict abstinence from alcohol during pregnancy? Not very strong…Looking at the evidence, a strict recommendation to have zero alcohol during pregnancy seems extreme (emphasis mine).” However, despite this, he still says, “Since it’s not clear how much alcohol it takes to cause problems, the best advice remains the same: women should avoid alcohol if they are pregnant or might become pregnant.” It’s obvious this isn’t evidence based, though - it’s CYA, the same as the CDC’s guideline.
The bottom line is that women get to decide what risk they are comfortable with for themselves. They do not need patronizing bartenders to do it for them.
You want to fight the hypothetical go ahead. But the op’s hypothetical places as a given that the woman is pregnant. Maybe she’s announcing it constantly, wearing a button that says “Kiss me I’m pregnant!”, wearing a “Baby inside!” T-shirt … ask the op. But that’s the hypothetical. The pregnancy is, to the bartender, not a diagnosis being made but a known fact. How far along she is is not identified
The CDC may be correct or incorrect on this. I don’t know and it is not one of the subjects that I am interested in enough to do an independent comprehensive review of. In general however I have found the CDC to be a reliable source of information. In lieu of that independent deep review of the information I’ll accept their expert opinion provisionally. Such is based on long experience of others inaccurately claiming that the CDC is wrong on this or that. Usually those who have claimed such have been the ones who are wrong. Maybe this time is different. Could be.
Whether they are right or wrong is immaterial to the hypothetical. The bartender is reasonably accepting them as reliable health experts and in fact as a general rule should believe them to be such.
Let me pose a few different hypotheticals:
A clearly sober man enters the bar. Announces his intent to drink 20 shots of Everclear in a hour and asks the bartender to set them up all in a row on the counter putting the money for all 20 on the counter. Is the bartender obligated to take the money and set those 20 shots up for this currently sober individual? Is he responsible ethically or legally for any medical harms that he suspects and honestly believes might result? Is he within his rights to refuse the money and the sale?
Someone who sells cigarettes somehow knows as a fact that the man who wants to buy a carton is planning on chainsmoking them in a car with closed windows for a trip across the country with three kids under three in the back of the car; is (s)he ethically obligated to be the person to sell them to him?
A pediatrician has patient parents who refuses vaccines for their children; is (s)he obligated to otherwise provide care, because refusing to do so would be patronizing? Is it forbidden to dismiss those families?
Oh, I spent the first 30 years of my life full of balance. Then in the past decade or so, I’ve watched with horror as anti-choice brigade has successfully stripped away my human rights in the ever encroaching state interest in pregnant bellies. So I’m off the balance now, standing underneath my end, trying desperately to prop it up before it crashes down and decapitates my daughters and granddaughters. No more compromise. They’ve proven they can’t be trusted with an inch of compromise.
A bartender should only base such decisions on the same rubric he’s using for everyone else.
The CDCs advice is patronizing, but as for advice, its ok - patronizing and without evidence, but they are correct in we don’t know what a safe level is. We do know its more than a single beer in the third trimester.
The law is discrimination of women and an invasion of their privacy and dangerous to bartenders - who may not be able to tell if a woman is pregnant or not, but are now responsible if they serve her a drink. I sort of wished I lived in New York state and had standing, I’d walk into bars in a pregnancy tunic, wait until I didn’t get served and then challenge the law.
A bartender who doesn’t want to sell alcohol to people who probably shouldn’t drink it should get out of the business - like a pharmacist who doesn’t want to dispense birth control. Bartenders can’t tell when someone is slightly over the legal limit to drive and intends to - or if they are well over the legal limit, but took a cab. They can’t tell if someone’s liver is failing, or if they got out of rehab six days ago. They can’t tell if they get drunk and go home and beat their wife. But with the law in place, its ethical to follow the law and not endanger your job or your employers business.