EVerybody’s favorite topic - We’ve all seen the pictures, read the heart breaking articles about those poor crack babies, born addicted, never able to achieve ‘what would have been’. Naturally, the response was to enact legislation to allow for the prosecution of child abuse while the woman was pregnant. here’s the latest story about it.
and, according to the link, other factors perhaps have a bigger effect - poverty, smoking, alcohol etc.
Now, for the debate. We’ve known for many years that smoking and alcohol are bad for unborn babies. But so far, nearly all of the prosecutions for prebirth child abuse have been for cocaine and other illegal drug addictions. (I agree that cocaine, herion etc are bad things for gestating babies as well.)
So, how far are we willing to take this? should we prosecute the woman who, for religious reasons avoids prenatal child care (done already acording to the first link)? The woman who smokes during pregnancy (how many cigarettes - 50? 1?)? the woman who refuses to wear her seatbelt (also illegal in many jurisdictions)? Fails to take the ‘Materna’ vitamins every day? Jaywalkers?
You seem to be conflating two slightly different approaches, wring. There is a legitimate distinction, to me, between saying “You can’t do anything that might endanger your unborn child” and "You can’t do anything that is already illegal for you to do anyway that might endanger your unborn child. The first proposition certainly begs for slippery slope treatment. The second one does not, as the criminality of the behavior is not determined by the woman’s pregnancy.
Thus, consume as much alcohol and tobacco as you want, but don’t smoke crack or drive around without a seatbelt. Quite simple, really.
How very helpful, killjoy. :rolleyes:
It’s a tricky subject, wring. And one I’ve gotten my ass kicked over before.
I suppose the only line I can think of would be drawn between “things that are known to be actively bad for a fetus” and “things that aren’t.”
While it’s best for a fetus that mom takes prenatal vitamins, there’s no known direct harm if she does not. OTOH, it is known that doing heavy amounts of drugs–caffeine, nicotine, cocaine, alcohol–will cause direct harm to a developing fetus.
And that harm results in costs to society and its members.
well, minty if you look carefully, the seat belt user **isn’t [b/] being singled out. And since when is it illegal to refuse medical treatment? Yes, it’s illegal to take cocaine/heroin, however, the prosecution is not for the illegal use, it’s for the ‘additional’ crime of harming the unborn child, so grease up that slippery slope if you will. And, as I pointed out - jaywalking is another illegal activity.
andros Prosecuted: woman who refused medical treatment since it was against her religion, women using crack. NOT prosecuted: women who smoke during pregnancy, drink, don’t wear seatbelts, jaywalk, live in poverty, etc IOW other assorted activities that can be shown to have a potential for injury, raise the risk for etc, children to have problems, some things illegal, some things not.
My problem is - if you’re going to prosecute on the basis of harm to the child, why concern yourself with ‘if the activity is illegal’, if your prosecution is based on illegality of the action then where’s the prosecution for those w/o seatbelts, jaywalking etc, and why the prosecution for refusing medical treatment? Clearer now?
(and of course, the ‘/’ should have gone in front of the ‘b’. dammit)
That this whole conversation stems frome the idea that sticky subject “is it a baby or not”… because the law condsireds the baby to be an actual child, the goverment then has legal precidence to try and sometimes convict women who abuse IMO a non-entity (excuse my lousy spellings).
Not entirely. Many of the activities in question can have effects that persist well after the fetus becomes human (whenever you think that is). Some drugs can cause severe and permanent disabilities. Regardless of your opinion on whether a fetus has rights, the fact remains that the person it matures into may have to suffer for its mother’s mistakes for its whole life.
While I in no way wish to imply that I support the use of drugs during pregnancy, I think it is important to point out that such behavior presents a risk to the unborn child, but it is by no means a certianty that the child will be harmed.
You can say (for example) that statistics show children born to women who drink during pregnancy have lower IQs, but you can’t prove that this particular child would have had a higher IQ had her mother not drank alcohol/smoked crack/smoked pot–whatever. In other words, in the absence of the child being born addicted, how could you possibly prove that the child was harmed by the mother’s actions?
But the way that we prosecute crack is just another example of the ways that racism are institutionalized. Notice that the penalties for crack use (associated with poor black people) are very different than those for cocaine (associated with rich white folks) even though the two substances are chemically very similer. There are whole books written on the subject of crack and the law, and I suggest reading one or two.
Of all the current odd stuff going on in this country currently, the trend to prosecute a pregnant (or formerly pregnant) woman for “fetal abuse” is the most frightening.
wring, according to NPRs Talk of the Nation last Thursday (?) South Carolina is attempting to prosecute a woman for drinking during pregnancy.
You know you are a crack addict, and you get pregnant anyway and don’t stop during pregnancy…the slope gets slippery…you know you are addicted to nicotine… add a little baby oil to that slope…you know you aren’t willing to give up that start me up cup of coffee…lets really slick it down…you know that you are a “mature” woman prone to preterm labor…
Andros, I disagree that it is known that any of those things * will * cause harm to a fetus. My aunt was such a drunk that she might as well have hooked up an IV to the gin bottle. I doubt she was sober in years. Drank like a fish throughout her pregnancy. She also was a constant two pack a day smoker. My cousin shows no signs of fetal alcohol syndrome (or even FAE) and is a perfectly normal, now middle aged woman. (My aunt is long dead of the abuse she put her body through.) On the other hand, a folic acid deficiency is the #1 cause of Spinal Bifida - if you tell your OB/GYN you are planning on getting pregnant, most will prescribe prenatal vitamins before you even conceive, just in case.
I have a lovely site on FAS, which includes a study that indicates kids exposed to moderate drinking in vitro actually do better at 18 months than their peers, but its too late to dig it up tonight. I’ll send a link around tomorrow.
Here is a New England (School of) Law Review article from a few years back. It’s a very good resource on the subject.
One of the more interesting questions it raises is how we can reconcile fetal protection laws with the right to abortion on demand. If the government cannot prevent a woman from killing a fetus, how can it prevent her from merely damaging it? From my point of view, which is a strictly legal one (I’m sure loads of people have a moral problem with it too), there is something distinctly unsatisfactory about laws that permit the former but criminalize the latter.