I’m well aware of that. I’m also well aware that for millenia before anyone was aware FAS syndrome existed, women has been drinking during pregnancy and the majority of those babies probably turned out fine.
But I said it surprised me that someone would say this, because, guess what, I was genuinely and honestly surprised. I’ve never been pregnant but I’ve had the idea of “DO NOT DRINK ALCOHOL WHILE PREGNANT” burned into my brain for years now. I thought it was a standard belief, a “rule” if you will, and like I said, I was surprised to see people who don’t think or feel the same way. I realize after actually typing those words out that it sounds stupid and sheltered and closed minded and possibly uninformed, but it was also completely innocent.
The tone of your post read, to me, as “Well okay… just as long as you know you’re a horrible person.” If that’s not how you intended it, then my apologies.
And for what it’s worth, that wasn’t really directed at you personally (although I certainly understand why you thought it was). I was just noting what I perceive as an unfortunately prevalent attitude toward pregnant women.
That’s absolutely NOT how in intended it. In fact, I intended it to give the complete opposite effect – “Well, I may disagree with you, but I don’t want you under the impression that I think you’re a horrible person or anything.”
Seriously. I’m the kind of person who, even if I DID think she was a horrible person, would still go out of my way to make sure she didn’t know it.
No, you asked, “What was it that I said that suggested I thought ANY of those things you listed?” and I told you. It was the whole thing, not any one phrase or sentence. You are, of course, entitled to come in and clean up our misunderstanding so that your intent is more clear. But the tone of a post is what the readers perceive in it, not what your intent was. The fact that several of us read the same judgmental tone indicates that it was a judgmentally toned post, although I’m more than happy to believe that it was not your intent.
Consider it a “tone-o”, like a typo but tonally. I’ve done it, too. We all have.
Well, I wasn’t trying to jump down your throat (obviously, though, you thought I was, so that’s on me), but though that may not have been your intent, your post did kind of have that vibe. It was the whole thing of not worth it for “a stupid glass of wine.” That came across judgemental to me. Pax?
Assuming that the person involved is absolutely certain they wish to abort, then yes; but the consequences of fetal alcohol syndrome are so unpleasant that it would be wiser, in my opinion, to wait until afterwards to have a real mega-binge, on the “there is many a slip between the cup and the lip” principle (that is, a sure thing is only sure when it has actually happened).
After all, people can be odd creatures, and many things I was sure I’d want one day, I didn’t want the next.
Again, I’m assuming we are talking real boozefests here. A single glass of wine is unlikely to do anything at all.
Wrong part? I’m going under my own assumption that whatever you do to your own body is your own business, until it affects something else. So if you’re planning on carrying a baby to term, shooting up heroin or bungee jumping or going in binges is going to be bad for the fetus as well as for you. But if it’s just you doing those things, you can make the choice.
As for when I said I might drink while pregnant, this is all hypothetical (not planning on kids for a while) but I do remember studying in developmental psych that a lot of European women continue to drink in moderation during pregnancy and that there isn’t a huge Fetal Alcohol Syndrome problem there. So to some degree, I think that there’s a bit of hysteria over alcohol and pregnancy in the U.S. Something like three glasses over the course of a pregnancy seems very unlikely to cause any harm, especially if it’s later on (it’s my understanding that the embryo is more vulnerable in the early stages). Of course, I would probably re-evaluate this more strongly if I were in the position of actually being pregnant, but for now it’s a hypothetical.
Ok, well here’s a theoretical reason to say sober.
What if you’re asked permission to have stem cells harvested from the aborted fetus?
Actually, since the fetus becomes medical waste, do they even need your permission? Maybe, like police can root through garbage without a warrant, doctors can slurp up useful cells from aborted fetuses without consent.
Do you want someone’s Parkinsons Disease treated with drunken stem cells?
I see. I definitely agree that one should have the ultimate jurisdiction over one’s own body, but I’d be lying to say I thought it was wise to shoot heroin just because you can and should be able to. However, to force that decision on another being who cannot make that choice does seem more of a moral problem. So I understand what you mean now.
Unfortunately my own knowledge on this point is pretty much limited to that one episode I saw on Law and Order: SVU. Dick Wolf wouldn’t lead us astray, would he?
When my best friend was pregnant with her daughter the doctor told her it was safe to have the occasional drink. I don’t know if this is something every doctor agrees with, but she felt that her OB/GYN was knowledgeable enough that she went ahead and drank one drink on several occasions. Her daughter turned out perfectly.
I guess I thought it was common knowledge that a woman could safely drink a small amount during pregnancy with no ill effect. Now I’m curious as to whether that is actually the case.
Yes, my aunt’s doctor said it was ok for her to have a drink occasionally.
Also, in fact I can swear I read here on this very board that someone’s doctor told them that an occasional glass of red wine was beneficial during pregnancy.
In my embryology class, we learned that while it’s best to abstain from drinking entirely, there’s no point in freaking out the woman by saying, “You drink? What kind of monster are you?” The development of the fetus obviously doesn’t all happen at once, and so there are times when its more susceptible to different teratogens with different results. The brain and nervous system is pretty much always developing which is why that’s a common birth defect, but once something like the arm is pretty well formed, it’s not going to be as affected as it might have been when it was just budding off. The end result, of course, is that it’s probably fine to have a glass of wine every now and then, but it’s not as safe as not drinking at all. The other thing I got out of embryology is that it’s freaking amazing any baby is born normal at all.
I think I linked to that study, or was it a newspaper article, back when we did this debate previously (not the abortion part, it was a “should you refuse to serve a pregnant woman alcohol” debate.) It was probably similar to, but not precisely this one, which points out "not even one study carried out since the mid-1980s has shown a direct correlation between moderate alcohol consumption and birth defects. One study, of 33,300 California women showed that even though 47% drank moderately during their pregnancies that none of their babies met the criteria for Fetal Alcoholic Syndrome. " and
Forgot to mention –– getting blotto the day before taking RU-486 or the like (abortifacient pills, not to be confused with EC or extra birth control pills used as EC, though they can make you sick as hell) is probably a bad idea as side effects include nausea, dizziness and vomiting. In other words, you do not want to be hung over.
Well that’s true. You probably don’t want to get wasted the night before a surgical abortion, either - alcohol can do some funny things to your blood, and make excessive bleeding more likely.
Yeah, in my “situation” I was telling people I was several weeks late and might be knocked up, so I had a doctor’s appointment in a week and hadn’t even made the abortion appointment. In that case, it’s not quite like getting blotto right before the big day.
