GPLindsey

ebolamonger --

I don't see anything in your quote that really contradicts my view of the matter. It says that a nurse mid-wife may be ok for a "low-risk" pregnancy, but that there are always risks of complications and that a few minutes can make a world of difference. I view the choices parents make about the labor/delivery scenario for their baby no different than the medical decisions they make about young children--don't take unnecessary risks. I'm sure there are many people walking around that were brought into the world by a mid-wife successfully. But the issue is the people who aren't walking around, because mom chose an at-home birth with a mid-wife.

As for enforcement, I would see the principle mechanism as fines. Bars/restaurants caught serving pregnant women drinks or letting them freely smoke could be fined, as well as the pregnant women themselves. The main thrust of such laws would be to put a greater societal stigma on women who make irresponsible decisions during pregnancy. State laws concerning mid-wifes could be strengthened to outlaw lay mid-wifes and to require licensed mid-wifes to operate only in a hospital setting.

Finally, after birth, if a baby can be shown to have been damaged in the womb by alcohol or nicotine addiction, or suffered injury or avoidable death as a result of a mid-wife birth, then the mother should be punished as we would other parents who engage in child neglect or endangerment, including prison time. We'd put a mother in jail for leaving her kid to die in a mini-van, trapped in a car seat on a hot summer day. Why shouldn't we put a mother in jail who lets her baby be still born due to alcohol poisoning, because she drank half a bottle of Scotch every day of her pregnancy?

Some have opposed my OP on the grounds that a woman is an autonomous person with rights, and we should not put the fetus/baby's welfare ahead of those rights. I agree in regards the early phases of pregnancy. However, I see the 9 months of pregnancy as a spectrum where the rights of the woman vs the rights of the baby inside her gradually change. At the beginning of a pregnancy, the woman should have full freedom of choice and should have the right to an abortion if she chooses. However, as I said earlier, I don't think she should have 9 months to make that choice, because I think the rights of the fetus/baby and the state's interest in protecting its life should grow as the fetus/baby grows. I think that in the 9th month, when there should be no question there is a human being inside the woman, that the welfare of the baby is more important that a woman's right to drink, smoke, or choose some high risk birthing situation.

Where is the magic dividing line during pregnancy when the baby's welfare comes before the mother's rights? Whereever society judges it should be ultimately. IMO all efforts to identify an objective measuring stick to judge when a human life begins in the womb have failed, because it is essentially a philosophical question. I am most comfortable with having the last trimester as the dividing line.

The Other Michael

It looks to me like we could conclude from your statements that the woman should then have the right to drink the half bottle of Scotch a day for the first trimester only - if that's enough to damage the fetus, then that's OK, since it is also OK to abort the fetus during that period.

cheers,
Michael

abe smith

G.P.LINDSAY: you need to find a nice deserted planet whitherto you can repair & start your colony for a Brave New World; and be its ruler
per omnia saecula saeculorum. Who the eff do you think you arrrrrrgh, Person?

Glory

G.P.Lindsey,

You have utterly ignored most of the questions we have asked you? Why is that?

Fines? The chief of police in 18th centuryFrance once noted how fair and egalitarian the laws of that country were. He cited as example the fact that the penalty for sleeping under a bridge was exactly the same for a rich person as for a poor person. What do you think the effect of a fifty dollar fine is on someone who earns $10,000.00 a year versus someone who earns $10,000.00 a month? Fines by their nature have no effect on the rich and an extremely disproportinate effect on the poor. How is a baby better off when its mother is spending what little money she has on fines rather than food? How do you propose to fairly penalise women who break these laws?

I am hesitant to ask you any more questions as I think you will simply ignore them as you have done with most of the ones you have already been asked.

Let me simply say that you need to think things out a little better if you expect to accomplish anything. Otherwise you come off as little more than a petty dictator who is so out of touch with the realities of life that you think its a compliment to the poor when you select one of them pull your rickshaw.

Glory

Claudia

GPLindsey,
What about people who sell alcohol/tobacco to pregnant wome when the pregnancy is not yet visible? (as it is a time when the fetus is very sensitive to poisons)?

About the midwives
Yes, a lot of births happen under the midwife supervision in Europe. In France, it is almost always in an hospital (it is the default option for public hospitals). I know that in other countries, it can be done at home more often. Under some strong conditions, among which the availability of a medical car at the door, to bring the mother to the hospital if needed (hospital must be close).

All my 3 kids have been delivered by a mid-wife. In an hospital. With both gynecologist and pediatrician doctors available in the minutes if needed. Because even low risk pregnancies can end with a problematic birth, from time to time.

pug846

I’m sympathetic to the OP, so I’ll try and make another argument for his or her position.

The law currently requires that parents show some form of reasonable care for their children. If you allow your four-year-old child to play in the streets all day and he or she is run over and killed, the parents will more than likely be held criminally liable. Or to make the hypothetical closer to the case here: let’s assume a mother feeds her two-year-old child a bottle of jack each day. Surprise, surprise, even though the mother rushes the child to the hospital when the kid passes out, she will probably be charged with manslaughter if the child dies. I don’t think anyone here would have a problem with the State charging the mother with something. If the child somehow survives, I don’t think the mother would have a legitimate argument that she shouldn’t go to jail or pay a fine because it would adversely hurt the kid. You could extend this argument out to anytime a mother with a young kid commits any crime, she should be let go and not punished. It simply wouldn’t be workable.

I think it would be reasonable to require women who know they are pregnant to require a basic amount of reasonable care for their fetus. So no, this wouldn’t require that the women not ride in a car because riding in a car would constitute a reasonable amount of care. The rule wouldn’t apply to any situation under which a fetus could be conceivable hurt, but only where an unreasonable amount of risk is undertaken.

Now, the complication is of course going to arise in that a fetus isn’t the same thing as a four-year old boy. I think you could reasonably argue that this is a case where the potential life of the fetus comes into play. If you are planning on taking the child to term, it will be a human being one day and I think the fetus would have the right to not be harmed in the above described scenario. If a women drinks for her entire pregnancy and severely damages the fetus, once the fetus becomes a human, wherever you might define that, given that every women knows that a fetus will become a human being eventually, unless she aborts it, then I think you can hold her criminally liable for her actions.

I think I addressed most of the objections.

DMB

I find some of these arguments abhorrent. Agreed, a pregnant woman has some moral resposibilities towards her foetus. But a foetus is not yet a member of the community, whereas a child is. Abused children can be taken away from their parents by the community. This doesn't apply to a foetus. I think that there are many good reasons to deny foetuses the legal status of persons. Of course the so-called "pro-life" lobby are very keen to do so.

You can only accord human rights to the foetus by diminishing the human rights of the woman. This then effectively relegates women to second-class citizenship.

The safest form of delivery for many women and their babies is a home birth. Don't forget that hospitals often carry an increased risk of infection. Many hospitals, particularly in the USA, have a worryingly high rate of caesarian sections. You should pay attention to the statistics in Europe. I can see no justification for draconian legislation to force women to give birth in hospitals.

None of what I have said above means that I do not agree that women who want to carry their foetuses to full term should not take care to keep themselves and the foetuses as healthy as possible and to opt for a safe birth procedure. But just as there will be parents who through ignorance, poverty or negligence give their children a bad upbringing, so there will always be some women who give their foetuses a bad start. IMO the answer is not punishment but education and help.

JerryM

You certainly have a good point that pregnant women have a responsibility to observe good pre-natal practices, but the criminal code is not the way to encourage this. Drinking, smoking, drug use are personal vices, and even though they may have adverse effects on the individual (and on others) it is virtually impossible to successfully control such personal behavior through criminal laws. And I think the laws you propose are probably unconstitutional. You know, the state of South Carolina had a law requiring drug testing of pregnant women receiving Medicaid benefits, and that was struck down by the Supreme Court. I'm not a lawyer, but I think such laws could be easily challenged on 14th Amendment/equal protection grounds. Your goal is admirable, but we don't live in a perfect world, and there's just not a perfect answer to every problem.

crab juice

One of the most popular pre-natal books on the market, What To Expect When You're Expecting, advocates pregnant women not using cleaning supplies or pumping gas...where do you draw the line? Do you make a glass case for the woman and handfeed her the whole nine months? Shoot, I think most pregnancies occur when at least one of the parents is drunk...maybe we should outlaw alcohol just to be safe.

Glory

The problem is one of practicality. Laws such as those proposed potentialy invade privacy, and simply don't work. I am reminded of abortion bans which rather than saving babies kill women and babies. By attempting to force women to adhere to these practices for the good of their babies, we force and shame a good number of them into hiding. They end up afraid to see doctors and not getting prenatal care. We already have girls giving birth in secret and leaving babies in dumpsters. I fail to see how threatening them with legal sanction for not going to a hospital is going to help. I believe the goal should be to encourage women to take care of themselves and their babies and to provide them with the resources they need to do so. Punishment will only have negative effects.

Glory

PS, I have never spoken to anyone who thinks abortion after the first trimester is an acceptable choice. In extreme cases when the mother's life is threatened or her health is severely compromised, I leave it up to the doctors to make the ghastly choice. Other than that, I am rather tired of hearing about late term abortion as though it is a common practice. It is not common, it is illegal in most states with the exceptions listed above, and it is a strawman built by antiabortionists in order to horrify anyone who may not know better than to believe these zealots.