Pregnant Smokers and Drinkers

Should women who smoke or drink while they are pregnant be subject to criminal penalty?

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
Should women who smoke or drink while they are pregnant be subject to criminal penalty?

No.

Even though it's counter-productive to having a healthy child and shows an incredible indifference towards life, such behavior is impossible to legislate and undesirable to do so as well.

Originally posted by eagles54
No.

Even though it's counter-productive to having a healthy child and shows an incredible indifference towards life, such behavior is impossible to legislate and undesirable to do so as well.

Why would it be any more impossible to legislate than child neglect or abuse?

Do you find laws against child abuse and child neglect to be undesirable?

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
Should women who smoke or drink while they are pregnant be subject to criminal penalty?

Where's the spirituality?

Originally posted by KneverKnight
Where's the spirituality?

In the potential arguments based on the God-given sanctity of life of the fetus.

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
In the potential arguments based on the God-given sanctity of life of the fetus.

Fair enough.

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
Why would it be any more impossible to legislate than child neglect or abuse?

Do you find laws against child abuse and child neglect to be undesirable?

Do you favor installing cameras everywhere an expectant mother is likely to be?

Do I find laws against child abuse and child neglect to be undesirable? Of course not. No need to be cute.

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
Should women who smoke or drink while they are pregnant be subject to criminal penalty?

Can we know for certain that this leads to irreparable harm to the fetus, or do you take this on the authority of medical dogma. It seems to me the medical studies are mixed, and most people believe it causes fetal damage on blind faith.

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
Should women who smoke or drink while they are pregnant be subject to criminal penalty?

Bit difficult to argue the case when abortion is legal.

Originally posted by Coletti
It seems to me the medical studies are mixed, and most people believe it causes fetal damage on blind faith.

http://www.hhs.gov/surgeongeneral/pressreleases/sg02222005.html

It is your opinion that the U.S. Surgeon General is acting upon faith alone when he issues the following statements?


"Based on the current, best science available we now know the following:

* Alcohol consumed during pregnancy increases the risk of alcohol related birth defects, including growth deficiencies, facial abnormalities, central nervous system impairment, behavioral disorders, and intellectual development.
* No amount of alcohol consumption can be considered safe during pregnancy.
* Alcohol can damage a fetus at any stage of pregnancy. Damage can occur in the earliest weeks of pregnancy, even before a woman knows that she is pregnant.
* The cognitive deficits and behavioral problems resulting from prenatal alcohol exposure are lifelong.
* Alcohol-related birth defects are completely preventable."

Originally posted by PawnCurry
Bit difficult to argue the case when abortion is legal.

Bit difficult to argue the opposite side when it's illegal to leave a baby in a closed garage with the car running.

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
Should women who smoke or drink while they are pregnant be subject to criminal penalty?

It would seem to me that, if a person holds the position that fetus is a person from the moment
of conception and that such a person is worthy of all the rights and privileges that a newborn baby
has, then I would have to say: yes.

That is, if it is illegal to harm your post-partum baby, and that we accept that such laws
(the violations of which are often difficult to detect and enforce) are moral and just, it should be
illegal to harm your pre-partum baby and laws (which would be equally difficult to detect
and enforce) should be enacted (if the fetus is indeed a person and entitled to the same rights
as any other person).

If you are going to call an 8-week fetus 'a child,' then laws should be in place to make 'child
abuse' illegal.

Nemesio

Originally posted by KneverKnight
Where's the spirituality?

Issues around the care of infants evoke a plethora of emotion that reaches deep into spiritual resources. Bible schmible, who cares which jesus cultist wrote what to who in comparison for the human condition relating to the care of children

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
Should women who smoke or drink while they are pregnant be subject to criminal penalty?

If you wish to adopt a child in the UK you are scrutinised by social workers your life examined in detail and if you smoke it counts against you, yet, if you procreate in the time honoured fashion no-one in the world can question your right to breed. If you apply for a job as a rat-catcher you have to satisfy a prospective employer, but if you take on the greatest responsibility in the world you can just get on with it in whatever feckless fashion you feel like up to the point of abuse. I'm not arguing for change but its a paradoxical situation

Originally posted by DoctorScribbles
Should women who smoke or drink while they are pregnant be subject to criminal penalty?

what penalty did you have in mind?