Crikey! I used to know that, but had completely forgotten. (When a celebrity drops out of the public eye, he ceases to exist…)
A medical doctor declining to treat a patient who refuses to follow basic medical advice and may even be acting illegally is radically different than a bartender with no medical training who decides to refuse service on the basis of a guess at a medical condition and some half-baked medical ‘knowledge’ that most of the western world disagrees with. The fact that you want to compare this situation to a doctor rendering a medical opinion on a serious issue highlights just how much of a patronizing, sexist jackass the bartender is. And confirms my desire to prosecute said bartender for practicing medicine without a license.
I don’t know the whole joke, but I think the punchline is “drinking for two”.
Um I think you are a bit confused. The NY law is that it is illegal for a bartender to NOT serve a pregnant woman whatever she requests to drink to the same degree of obvious inebriation that would lead to cutting off a nonpregnant consumer. Your doing what you describe would not be challenging the law it would be asking for it to be enforced.
In any case, yes, a bartender is expected to use reasonable judgment regarding who to refuse service to. There is no standard that they divine blood alcohol levels or possess a crystal ball. There is a standard that serving someone past the point of obvious inebriation, past the point where a reasonable person might reasonably expect harmful consequences, is unethical, and in many states exposes the bartender to legal liability. A bartender who wants to sell alcohol to those people who very probably shouldn’t drink it should get out of the business.
Oh yes. In just the last year the local government took away all of my rights and the rights of my nieces, cousins, and my friends’ daughters. Apparently in my state anything “fetal” is far more important than a living, walking, thinking, laughing woman. Only white men and fetuses have rights. If you’re a non-fetal non-white woman, you’re lower than dirt. If you’re a non-fetal white woman, you’re just a walking uterus.
Medical doctors actually have a protocol they have to follow when deciding to reject a patient they have a relationship with. They have to provide written notice of their decision to cut off the relationship and provide care until the patient can obtain other care.
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No it is not illegal to refuse immunizations.
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Given that the CDC and the WHO both advise against alcohol consumption during pregnancy (with the WHO advising none but allowing for limited consumption, no more than “two units” - which equals one standard glass of red wine, no more than once or twice a week, after the first trimester), the advice (whether or not you believe it is the place of a server of said alcohol to do any more than bring said alcohol) is not quite something that “most of the western world disagrees with.” Not so sure if programs like this, run by the WHO, are too half baked and patronizing for you. It’s the advice given in the U.K., in New Zealand, by the American Academy of Pediatrics, by the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology and on …
Again the hypothetical is that the pregnancy is not a guess but a known condition.
Out of curiosity … is a program like this one in Alaska too patronizing?
spamforbrains … I’m a pediatrician. I know the drill better than you, trust me. No, my practice does not dismiss patient families who are refusers, but it is indeed something that some practices do.
oh good. So I haven’t spent half my life telling doctors what they are SUPPOSED TO DO in vain.
I am very sure that they’ve all been ever so grateful and that you had nothing better to do than to tell professionals how their professions work. (Written notice with the cause listed and stating that emergency care only will be provided for 30 days suffices for most primary care circumstances btw. A specialist in a remote location may be stuck providing care for longer.)
My sober man 20 shots of Everclear lined up and carton to be smoked in an enclosed car with toddlers hypotheticals have been ignored … but that won’t stop me from posing a few another, especially given that the number one endorsed option is “I don’t care if she wants to chug Everclear (~95% ABV)” Now there is zero question that chugging Everclear would be harmful to a fetus/unborn infant at any point in pregnancy.
Let’s focus on a woman 36 to 37 weeks pregnant or later for now. Some have noted that the evidence for a drink causing long term harm to the developing baby at that point is scant. But the choice most commonly endorsed is not caring if she is chugging Everclear.
Would you be okay as a bartender with giving a woman shots of Everclear somehow knowing that she was going to put it into a formula bottle and serve it to her newborn who was born 3 weeks premature, who is with her having just left the hospital? Is that being materially different inside or outside the uterus at 37 weeks? Is that 37 week gestational age being completely without any protection from abuse and neglect until a certain fraction of its body is emerged from the uterus? Or not until the cord is cut?
I am a very pro-choice individual but the extreme position here that a viable baby who is soon to be born has no right to protection, that a server should knowingly aid and abet even a very clear high risk of harm (which chugging Everclear would be) is absurd.
I’d serve her whatever she asked for. That’s my job as a bartender.
When I worked in a gas station, pregnant women came in all the time for cigarettes, and I sold the cigarettes to them.
Plus I have a strong suspicion, we could even call it a working hypothesis, that any causal relationship between “binge drinking” and “pregnant” are from drinking to pregnant and not the other way around. Which in turn means, again working hypothesis, those are also the pregnant women most likely to not know until pretty late.
Wow. I bet you would be the life of all the parties you probably never get invited to.
Alcohol is alcohol is alcohol. The OP’s delineation by ABV isn’t important, except as another way to get some people to demonstrate their judgement of women drinking “hard” liquor instead of “girly” drinks.
No one should be served 20 shots - a number which you completely made up.
No, I think what you’re seeing is that some of us are getting really fed up with the nanny state in the overlap of medicine and politics. There’s been a shift, and I can’t exactly pinpoint where it happened, but government role in medicine used to be about preventing proven unsafe things (like lead in cosmetics) from being bought and sold, and at some point it’s flipped to attempting to prevent anything not proven safe, which is a different story. I get it. You don’t like damaged infants. I’m with you. But I’ve also been in a position of being lectured to by people, by media, by doctors, for eating lunchmeat, for even driving by a Starbucks and inhaling deeply, for sleeping on the wrong side of my body… it’s never ending. It’s beyond annoying into infuriating. And it gives people a smug false sense of security during pregnancy, and an entry into blame and guilt when, despite all her best efforts, an adverse outcome occurs anyway.
In the real world, were I that bartender, I’d serve the first drink with no hesitation, because there is not a single study that shows minimal drinking is problematic. I’d serve a second with a glass of water on the side to slow things down a bit. And depending on the timing, I might or might not serve a third. Same as anyone else.
Because it’s not my job to protect her fetus. It isn’t. It isn’t even yours, yet, as a pediatrician. It’s hers. And she’s entitled to do a shitty job of it, and face the consequences of having to raise a child with special needs. I’m not even close to being okay with policing parenting styles in the middle ground of “maybes” and moderately poor choices. I’ll save my outrage for the abusers and antivaxxers.
I would smile and serve her a drink with no more than a drop of booze in it. If she doesn’t like it, she can go elsewhere. Bartenders are free to refuse service to anyone. I’m going to use that option if she wants a second drink.
(In my experience, where I live, I suspect there would be greater harm to the establishment from the patrons seeing the pregnant lady served booze, than from her pitching a fit and storming off, without being served!)
It is illegal to refuse immunization for anything other than religious or medical (as in the doctor believes immunization would damage this patient) reasons in a number of states, so refusing for non-religious reasons like believing anti-vax propaganda is actually illegal in quite a few places. Note that I said ‘may be illegal,’ not ‘is always in all locations and for all reasons illegal’ because you hadn’t specified the reasons or the state.
It depends on the state - as the OP points out, that is not actually the case in all states. Discriminating against women that you believe to be pregnant (or against Indians, or blacks, or other minority groups) is actually illegal there. Would you still refuse to serve if it was the law in your state?
I don’t have any problem with such laws, I think that needing an equivalent of the ‘Negro Travelers Green Book’ to find places that won’t discriminate against you in 2016 is actually pretty disturbing, though I guess it’s easier to spread the information now.
Alcohol is alcohol and “chugging Everclear” ≠ having one beer.
Why yes I made up the number 20. It was a proposing a hypothetical. You make things up in a hypothetical. It is what a hypothetical is.
The reason for a hypothetical is to explore a thought process. Why in you mind should no one be served 20 shots if they are ordering them and making the decision to drink them all at once in a competent rational state?
Nanny state is not being discussed here. Is it legal for a woman to drink while pregnant? Yes. It is legal for her to drink every day as much as she wants. No proposal for making that illegal or charging her with child abuse is part of this thread.
The op though explores the role of those who facilitate the use of a potentially harmful substance, their freedoms, their choices, or their obligation (legally mandated in NY) to not exert their choice.
I’ll ask for you to answer explicitly. 37 weeks gestation. Child born entitled to state protection from alcohol being forced into his/her system by his/her mother; child 1 day prior to birth and servers should be obligated (again by law in NY) to facilitate the mother forcing alcohol into his/her system if she asks. Both true? Either true?
(BTW, no it is not true that there is not a single study that shows … the data seems to be mixed. Again, chugging Everclear, goes beyond that.)
She’s entitled to do a shitty job protecting her baby-to-be. Is another obligated to help her do that shitty job? If it was clearly crossing into the line of doing a shitty job, chugging Everclear, would you continue to help? (You’d cut everyone off at 3 drinks, most bartenders do not have that as a standard metric, falling over is more the metric they might consider saying that’s enough.)
Nope. Not in a single state. Sorry.
It is is allowed for states to require immunization for entry to public school or state licensed daycare but if someone chooses to homeschool and not vaccinated they can so choose.
In theory, anybody can refuse anything they want, and it is legal, unless a prosecutor has the evidence to make a compelling case beyond a doubt that there was intent to violate the civil rights of a member of a protected class, and an actor can easily fabricate plausible motives… In practice, there is a presumption of guilt if there is a member of a protected class anywhere in the building. In a single anecdotal case, the outcome can swing anywhere between those two poles, often depending on whether the news/industrial complex gets hold of it.
I believe, most everywhere, regardless of the laws, that because marginal persons and/or persons with issues + alcohol often leads to other bigger problems, in one form or another, bartenders (and bar owners) are given surprisingly large leeway in their right to refuse service.
To anyone. Any time.
I am completely in favor of the New York State law and similar laws, and if I were a bartender, I would not have a problem serving a pregnant woman alcohol (at least to the point where I would not be comfortable serving anyone alcohol, if they were visibly drunk.) Here’s why.
(1) There is no scientific evidence that low levels of alcohol consumption cause birth defects. Zero. Zilch. None. The only effect of these restrictions is to infantilize and oppress women.
(2) How can you know if a woman is really pregnant? There are women whose proportions makes them look pregnant all the time. It’s already difficult to live in a world which penalizes fat people so heavily; it would be a nightmare to be such a woman and move through a world where you’re publicly humiliated every time you want to order a drink. There are also the cases where a woman looks pregnant, but recently lost the baby, though I can’t find the discussion at the moment. To assume someone was pregnant and act accordingly under these circumstances would be to bring up and rub in-- completely unnecessarily, given (1)-- one of the worst things that can happen to a person.
(3) The broader context. Alcohol is implicated in plenty of health problems and social ills-- alcoholism, domestic violence, and drunk driving, to name just a few. Why are we singling out pregnant women here? Even if our goal is just to prevent harm to fetuses, shouldn’t we also refuse to serve alcohol to men whose partners are pregnant? That way, they can’t go home and beat their wives or get them involved in a drunk driving accident.
In other words, assuming a woman is pregnant and refusing to serve her alcohol is part sexism, part insensitive meddling.