# I pit the fetal personhood statute of Wisconsin for jailing a pregnant woman for no good reason **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 25, 2013, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-fetal-personhood-statute-of-wisconsin-for-jailing-a-pregnant-woman-for-no-good-reason/672200 "2013-10-25T12:33:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Banana\_Pancake\_Flipper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ce7236/32.png) [@Banana\_Pancake\_Flipper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banana_Pancake_Flipper)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-fetal-personhood-statute-of-wisconsin-for-jailing-a-pregnant-woman-for-no-good-reason/672200/81 "2013-10-30T21:42:36Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I like to think I have some knowledge of the subject. I ran a substance abuse treatment center for over a decade. Given your lack of even a basic understanding of narcotic addiction - specifically why someone who’s only recently stopped using is very susceptible to relapse - I do not believe you. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-fetal-personhood-statute-of-wisconsin-for-jailing-a-pregnant-woman-for-no-good-reason/672200/82 "2013-10-30T23:16:29Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > Because, in my opinion, fetal personhood laws are bad candidates for poorly defined, I-know-it-when-I-see-it laws. They assume away the vastly different ways that reasonable people feel about fetuses. > > For example, I imagine there is large overlap between what **Bricker** and I would see as child abuse. Sure, there may be some gray area – is spanking OK? is paddling OK? Fundamentally, though, reasonable people put similar (high) values on the health and welfare of a child. > > The same cannot be said about a fetus – **Bricker** is, I believe, a devout Catholic, firmly pro-life, and holds a fetus as the moral equivalent, or near moral equivalent as a child. I’m firmly pro-choice and don’t see the fetus as anything like a child, certainly not in the first, say, six months. So, the burden and care that he would ask of a pregnant woman is going to be very different than I would. > > I think he’s a reasonable person and I think I am a reasonable person. However, we would require very different things from a pregnant woman, since we see that pregnancy and that fetus as very different things. I think you are conflating “fetal personhood” laws with “fetal endangerment” laws. You can have the latter without the former, and that doesn’t help any with the fuzzy line issue. I’m not in favor of fetal personhood laws because they are intended as a first (or maybe final) step in the process of making abortion illegal. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2013, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-fetal-personhood-statute-of-wisconsin-for-jailing-a-pregnant-woman-for-no-good-reason/672200/83 "2013-10-31T05:17:21Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > During your decade of running a substance abuse treatment center, did you ever encounter a client who said that while he or she had used drugs in the past, that was over, and they weren’t going to do it any more? > > And if you did: did it ever happen, with any of those people, that their predictions turned out to be in error? Sure, lots of them. But I also encountered people who stopped using drugs. If it wasn’t possible for a person to stop using drugs, what would be the point of offering treatment? Wouldn’t it be a fraud to offer to help people quit drugs if quitting drugs was impossible? But let me ask you again, what do you feel the standard should be? Do you feel the standard should be that any person who has used drugs in the past is a probable risk to use drugs in the near future? If that’s the case, shouldn’t the Wisconsin law reflect that standard and say that any woman who has a drug history should be confined during her pregnancy? Or do you feel pregnant women with drug histories should be judged on a case-by-case basis? And if you feel that, what articulable reasons do you have for feeling that Alicia Beltran was a particular risk? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-fetal-personhood-statute-of-wisconsin-for-jailing-a-pregnant-woman-for-no-good-reason/672200.md?page=4)