If that happens I will become a lesbian therfore I can no longer get pregnant lol

Birch I agree with you 100%

I disagree. I believe that any activity a non-pregnant woman can engage in, a pregnant woman ought to be able to do as well. I find the concept of stripping someone of their rights because of their reproductive status to be quite alarming.

As for illegal drug use, if a pregnant woman is caught doing that, the penalties should be no greater than those imposed on a non-pregnant woman.

Personally, I think all drugs should be legal anyway. Of course, I know that's never going to happen. But a Libertarian can dream, right?

I feel the same way, we shouldnt be locked in a room because someone else cares more about something that is to come then what is already here. I dont think they understand the implications on what they are saying snug, especially if it is a woman.

But we're talking about a WANTED pregnancy, right? Obviously, a woman who drinks and does drugs doesn't care about the fetus so why stay pregnant to give birth to a CHILD that could be seriously damaged from her abuse? Why shouldn't anyone care for a fetal human when the woman is intentionally harming it?

Or are we supposed to only care once it's born?

Why would it be scary to explicitly define "something obvious"? If a woman drinks several times a week for her entire pregnancy and the child is born with FAS, how more obvious can you get?

So you approve of a woman purposely becoming pregnant, purposely keeping the pregnancy, and then purposely poisoning the fetus by drinking so that it is born with FAS.

I consider that to be child abuse. She may as well have waited for it to be born and then beaten it nearly to death; Oh, but THEN you'd be up in arms about it!

I think someone else touched on this: I am NOT talking about women who are intending to abort. I am ONLY talking about women who are planning to give birth. To purposely engage in activities that are PROVEN to be deadly and harmful to the fetus is CHILD ABUSE and should be treated as such by law.

Ironically, women from my mother's generation had more personal freedom when pregnant than women today. They could imbibe in legal chemicals like everyone else, eat what they wanted and participate in any activity they wanted to. Somehow, my generation didn't come out as mutants because of it. Now people want to have pregnant women arrested for having a couple of glasses of wine or lighting up a cigarette. If everything that they're saying is harmful to unborn were outlawed for pregnant women, they would have to spend the incubation period in a plastic bubble or go immediately into police custody as soon as the stick turned colors.

And yet, the advocates of stripping pregnant women of their rights can't seem to see what a huge violation it is or how grossly prejudice their stance is. Everyone else is permitted to do all manner of things that they "shouldn't" be doing. Pregnant women should be no exception. People that are worried about a low population crisis would do well to oppose legislation and societal attitudes that would frighten a lot of would-be mothers out of reproducing at all.

I don't think women who are purposely trying to give birth should have personal freedoms such as drinking heavily, smoking, or taking harmful substances (unless such treatment is to save the mother's life or ease intolerable situations - determined by the woman AND her doctor), as they are harboring someone else's life inside of them. Doesn't that mean they should be MORE responsible, not LESS? I find it ironic that people seem to want pregnant women to be able to prance around drinking and smoking yet cry when babies come out deformed or sick due to the mother's actions.
"Oh, how could it happen to me!" - It was 100% preventable. FAS is 100% preventable.

IF you want to drink when pregnant, then your child should not receive any aid in school if they come out mentally or physically handicapped. IF you want to do harmful things to your unborn child, then neither I nor the Government owes you a single CENT OF AID. Your baby is premature? Maybe it was those cocktails and the pack of cigs you smoked every day. Maybe it was your refusal to eat healthy foods or your unwillingness to sensibly curtail your physical activities. Why should I pay for something YOU did to your own child?

I'm sorry, but if that's not considered child abuse, I don't know what is. At least a baby can fight back, however feebly. A fetus cannot; you are pumping those poisons directly into his or her bloodstream.

Why should a pregnant woman be restricted from doing bad things that all other people are "permitted" to do? Because it's not just HER life she is endangering. There is another life inside of her, and it is NOT WORTHLESS.

A woman goes and gets drunk time after time; fine, her body, her choice. A purposely pregnant woman gets drunk time after time? So does the fetus. The fetus' body is not HER body, and it is not her choice to poison it with alcohol.

When you're pregnant, it's not just about YOU anymore. Especially if you have CHOSEN to become pregnant and intend to bring that child into the world, you owe it every logical chance you can give to help it grow safely, healthy, and properly.

Don't like the heavy burden of responsibility being pregnant brings? Then don't get pregnant or abort if you do.

No, I'm sorry, I meant: responsibility and thus punishment would be a scary bit of business, unless those things were explicitly defined.

FAS is obvious yes, but what about simply walking into a smoky room, engaging in an activity that may or may not be harmful (some people think running is harmful)etc. Who gets to define, and what is their rationale?

At any rate, women who drink heavily during pregnancy have something else going on than just the desire to drink, and that needs addressed.

Well laws are always being more and more explicitly defined as exceptions are always being found.

Second hand smoke? I doubt that causes birth defects. Chain smoking? Yes. Vague situations don't count. Doctors get to define, since they're the ones who know.

And being depressed or mentally unstable is NO excuse for harming your unborn child.

You're confusing advocation of pregnant women to have the same rights as everyone else (imagine that, they're actually human beings and not just a womb with legs!) with the advocation for pregnant women to go out and party all the time.

You must think really low of the female gender if you seriously believe that having the right to smoke and drink like every other citizen will make women everywhere go on binges. Your logic is as bad as the prolifers that are against the HPV vaccination because they think it will encourage women to screw everything in sight. Most women would not get drunk every night, smoke heavily or use narcotics when carrying a pregnancy they are willing to carry. Of course if the prolifers have their way a lot of us will end up either gestating unwillingly or killing ourselves so we've got one side trying to force us to breed, while people like you want to discriminate against us further by making us criminals for having a smoke or eating/drinking something YOU don't approve of.

How about trying this one on for size, cmyked: I am a person. I do not cease to become a person if pregnant, and neither do other women. Treating us as wards of the state and restricting our activities based on our gender and reproductive status us a violation of our human rights.

I'd also like for you to think about this: We can't just walk to the nearest health clinic or doctor's office and have our tubes tied because we say so. If it were that simple the abortion rates would be massively lowered. You say "Don't get pregnant or abort if you do" as if it's a simple thing. It ISN'T! Because of prolifers and militant "my way or the highway" people like yourself, women's bodily autonomy is constantly under fire and we are in a struggle JUST TO MAINTAIN THE RIGHT TO NOT BECOME PREGNANT IN THE FIRST PLACE.

I'll make a deal with you. When you find a way to guarantee that all women everywhere have unquestioned access to voluntary sterilization, birth control and abortion then you can have your fascist way and treat the ones that are still brave enough to breed like farm animals. Slap a ball and chain around their ankle and have them monitored through the whole nine months, fine them for scooping cat litter or eating fish or drinking coffee or taking aspirin, throw them in jail and toss away the key if they DARE to even sip a beer or a glass of wine and have them publicly hanged if they smoke a cigarette. Shove bamboo shoots under their nails if you've got that much of a yen for torturing women, but you'd better make bloody sure that only those who are willing to be dehumanized by you will ever be subjected to your enslavement.

Oh, you'll have to find a way to abolish rape too or actually punish those who commit it and ensure that they will never ever get the chance to do it again, instead of protest them being locked up for it. You seem sadistically eager to criminalize pregnant women for stepping over your particular line but those poor rapists must be protected!

You seriously need to review your priorities and imagine for a moment what it would be like to be locked up for having a cigarette just because of your gender. Sickening.

While I'm thinking of it, I'd also like to remind you of the fact that male sperm is damaged from the use of narcotics, alcohol, nicotine and caffeine. In your little "Handmaid's Tale" perfect world, not only would the women that commit the "horrible crime" of having a glass of red with dinner be treated worse than child molesters, but the ones that behave like good little broodmares and cower in their rooms would also be subjected to your witch hunt, because your new world order only targets and blames females for anything that goes wrong with the fetus and not the males (unless a man punches a pregnant woman in the gut, with plenty of male eye-witnesses to attest that the woman didn't do it to herself or ask him to).

So men will be able to carry on using all legal substances and enjoying all legal activities, but any women unfortunate enough to be impregnated by damaged sperm will end up criminalized whether they stayed in their plastic bubble or not. Oh, but it's not discrimination and it's not a double-standard and it's certainly not illogical to put all of the blame, burden and responsibility on the one that stands to lose the most in the process of gestation. Heavens, no.

If you criminalize legal substances for pregnant women then you must criminalize it for all men as well. Men can never ever be allowed to subject themselves to chemicals that could affect their sperm and cause future birth defects, so long as they are capable of impregnating anyone. It's the only way to ensure that nobody "abuses" their nonexistent children. Outlaw all of these things for everyone except for sterile men and women.

Of course people are going to be far more willing to penalize women for doing things that harm their reproductive functions than they will be to penalize men. Women are fun to smack around, aren't we?

How far would you take this? There are behaviors that both men and women engage in that damage their gametes, thus causing horrific birth defects in their children. Should we punish these people as well?

A gamete is not a being. I'm not a catholic who thinks every sperm is sacred. A fetus is a fetus; a unique being in this world with his or her own set of unique DNA. A fetus is more than the sum of its parts; it's not just an egg plus a sperm. It's more than that.

Trying to protect gametes is reaching too far back. Many people go through experiences that could possibly damage their gametes. If we were to start going back and back, we would need to posthumasly arrest grandparents for working with hazardous materials, and arresting grandparents for defects that appear in grandchildren.

Protecting the fetus, however, makes sense since it IS, right now, a unique being. It IS a human. It even is at certain ages a BABY, just inside the woman and days away from birth.

If you are purposely pregnant, know of the pregnancy, purposely engage in activities you know can cause problems and then give birth to a child with those problems, I do indeed feel punishment is due.

Honestly, you can't blame the child for its situation, so forcing the parent to pay who may be incapable of paying for advanced care will only further hurt the abused child. Something else would have to be done. Therapy for substance abuse if it was alcohol or drugs, and any other applicable program for starters.

I disagree...........

My doctor informed when I was a pregnant that a glass of wine here and there wouldnt any harm, now considering I have two kids with whom I had a glass of wine and with which I smoked they are perfectly healthy.

Wine is a big part of my living and in moderation is actually healthy, anything can be wrong if it is taken out of context and some doctors feel the same way, to say they dont I can provide you the name and number of my GP/ob gyn who provided with this information in a PM if you want.

Did I say "a glass of wine here or there"? No. I'm talking about drinking heavily during a pregnancy.

Yes than I agree(apologizes).

I try to stay away from saying "any drinking" because I know that right now it's contested how much alcohol during a pregnancy is bad. That's why in my hypothetical "law", punishment wouldn't happen unless the child was born with FAS or other disorders related to other drug uses.

There are multiple studies on the impact of second hand smoking and fetal development.

I disagree that doctors are the know all, end all of health and treatment. There is a measure of disagreement within the health system are far as what is kosher or not.

I'm not sure I know what you mean when someone is depressed or mentally unstable. These individuals are not (always) responsible for their own behavior.

For instance, you've got someone actively schizophrenic, engaging in risky behavior. You would apply a measure of punishment for their noncognizant actions?

As you've said, it's not the fetuses fault, but neither is it the mother's.



I think this is a fantastic idea, and much more useful than any punishment would be.

Of course doctor's don't know "all", only God does. However, a doctor knows far MORE than I or the average person knows about their body. That's why they go to school. I would no sooner operate on myself than I would try to fix my own car. I simply don't know how; I leave it to the professionals.

It's NOT the mother's fault she drank so much during her pregnancy that her child developed FAS? Sorry, but punishment IS in order, AS WELL as a recovery program.

You're probably going to tell me it's not the drunk driver's fault he killed the family he crashed into. The woman was sober when she decided to drink; she was sober and unless proven by a doctor, she was mentally capable of making the RIGHT decision, which is NOT TO DRINK HEAVILY while pregnant!! It's a no-brainer!

Oh, and by the way, secondary-blame is almost never sensible. It's like that woman suing McDonald's because she dumped their hot coffee on her own lap.