BTW, this is what the CDC recommends for drinking for men and non-pregnant women. Some people are arguing that the CDC guidelines for pregnant women justify not serving a pregnant woman, and some are arguing that it’s unreasonable to expect a bartender to go against said guidelines. I’m wondering if any of the people who use ‘CDC guidelines’ as the basis for refusing to serve a pregnant woman also follow the CDC guidelines for non-pregnant women and men? I don’t think many bars would stay in business if they will refuse service to anyone who can’t vertify that they’ve drunk before, and to non-pregnant woman after 1 drink and to a man after 2 drinks. But if the bar or bartender is really just following CDC guidelines and not actually discriminating against pregnant women, that’s what they would have to do.
Somehow I don’t think all or even most of the 18 (at the time of the post) “I would refuse service” votes would also refuse service to someone who had not had a drink before, and would limit men to 2 drinks and women to 1 drink.
It’s part of the bartenders job description to monitor alcohol consumption. Encourage people to drink responsibly. Period.
How they do so, to who’s standard, will shift from bar to bar, manager to owner, day bartender to night bartender, etc, on endlessly.
Tell me, if she was pregnant and obviously drunk, would you then be okay with the bartender refusing her? If yes, and you feel it’s their job to, then you’re going to have to grant them some leeway.
So much leeway that the bar owner will always win I believe.
I don’t know about the US but in the UK it’s illegal to sell alcohol to someone who’s drunk. So all you have to do is say, “I’m sorry ma’am but I think you’ve had too many already.”
AND how much that shift is done on the backs of women. And it isn’t just the nanny state…for some reason we’ve gone from not mentioning a woman’s delicate condition to her pregnancy being a matter of concern for strangers on the elevator.
Plus it isn’t my pregnancy that concerns people anymore - its my potential pregnancy. I shouldn’t drink if I’m not on birth control. The bartender could deny me alcohol simply because I’m of childbearing age.
But, hey, while I’m of childbearing age, my husband can be on Rogaine - and I’m not even supposed to touch it because it will cause birth defects. But his hair is really important. My ability to have a drink with dinner, not so much.
While I don’t agree with it, I understand the argument that a fetus is a parasite dependent on the woman’s body, and she has a right to kill it and not have it living off her. Does this change when it is a wanted pregnancy and she is close to delivery as in the OP? Does she then have a responsibility to not harm the baby? In which case, it’s not just what a person can do with their body, but what they do with this other body?
No. And it is not a baby, it is a fetus. It’s her body, her choices. Women are people and are actually capable of making educated, balanced decisions about what to do with their own bodies, and how they gestate fetuses.
This PDF and link are good reads about how a certain faction of religious people (primarily white men) are trying to get rid of all of women’s rights by going around shrieking about “unborn babies” and “the sanctity of life.” Of course they don’t a rat’s ass about the babies once they are born, and apparently they think women aren’t people at all.
Just to be clear, you’re saying that a mother purposely carrying a baby* does not have a responsibility to not do things that harm the baby*? Because this is expected of parents who are taking care of a baby after it’s born.
I’m ignoring the vitriol about pro-life people because I’m not asking about forcing an unwilling woman to have a baby. I’m talking about a woman who wants to have the baby.
*I’m using “baby” because most women who are choosing to carry a pregnancy to term by choice call it a baby.
Wait a minute… I thought that bartenders were ethically required by the standards of their profession to refuse to serve a customer if they thought it would be harmful. Is that not the case?
Now, of course, a bartender can be mistaken in that belief, but one can see how the belief could be sincere and reasonable in this case.
It’s not a baby. It’s a fetus. Use words correctly.
We can only hope that she chooses to do things that don’t harm the fetus. Kind of like we hope parents don’t smoke around their kids, keep the guns locked up, and feed them vegetables. We only intervene if the parent does something truly criminal and for the most part we just focus on providing information to people so they can make educated choices.
Not that it really matters-most of the things that cause serious harm to fetuses only really affect the fetus during very early development, long before anyone else is aware that the woman is pregnant, and often long before the woman herself is aware of it. Getting drunk one evening during the third trimester is extremely unlikely to do anything to the fetus; not consuming sufficient folic acid during the first trimester may very well cause problems.
Which is one reason why we should push for comprehensive contraception so that no unplanned pregnancies ever occur.
If it somehow makes you feel better to call a 37 week gestational age human entity 1 second after it emerges from the uterus a baby and to call it a fetus the second before, then have at it for yourself. But no, the word “baby” is not “incorrect” the second before just because using it makes you personally somehow uncomfortable.
I would however love to see you try to correct an expectant mother in labor who is … calmly and soothingly … asking her nurse who is reviewing the strips “How’s my baby?” … “It’s not a baby, it’s a fetus.”
Yes, sometime during the third trimester a fetus turns into a baby. I don’t know when that happens and the best science doesn’t either. Sometime after the 27th week of gestation the brain actually starts to work and it slowly turns into a person. But since we cannot assign a cutoff point, we should use correct terminology. Until it takes a breath of air on its own (which is the Bible’s definition of life) it’s a fetus. However, a woman in labor can use any words she wants to. Including bad four-letter words.
It somehow makes me feel better to call it an egg one second before it hatches and a chick one second after… I can deal with that. Those are not definitions that I “have for myself” – most people understand them, which facilitates communication.
