Drinking drugs and smoking whilst being pregnant?

[pennygirl26]

I know someone who is due her baby in Dec. She only found out a few weeks ago she is pregnant.

She had very openly continued to smoke cigarettes and joints,but has been drinking also saying its not anything worse than what she's done in the past 6 months. She's also still taking coke every now and again. What can I do about this? I feel sick every time I see her. The other night I caught her buying a half bottle. It's just so dicgusting I don't know who to go to as I don't want her to know its me.

It might well be law but I don't have to agree with it. There are plenty of laws that people object to morally.

I object to assisted dying being illegal but the law still exists to say you can't do it. I just don't agree with that law.

And I think there's a huge difference between saying as a pregnant woman you have the right to ingest harmful substances (and that may result in harm to the baby) as opposed to you have the right to harm your unborn child.

Of course you don't have to agree. It is your right to be taken to water and refuse to drink. I was simply pointing out that your comment about the right to ingest harmful substances not being written in any law showed total ignorance of the way these things work. Although none of the arguments from people in the No Right camp have survived even brief contact with reality.

It is your right to insist that a woman shouldn’t have the right to do it. It isn’t your right to insist that she doesn’t. She does. It’s a fact.

It is your right to insist that a woman shouldn’t have the right to do it. It isn’t your right to insist that she doesn’t. She does. It’s a fact.

What disturbs me most tbh is how much you appear to relish the thought that women have the right to cause lifelong harm to an unborn child.

What disturbs me is the level to which people who think women don't have the right to bodily autonomy are willing to ignore reality when they come up with ideas about prevention. Chilling.

It might well say you have the right to ingest potentially harmful substances but I'm pretty sure it's not written anywhere that you have the right to harm the baby.

This is a semantic difference only. Pregnant women have the right to drink alcohol and refuse medical intervention, where they have mental capacity. Drinking alcohol could result in FAS or FASD, it is a potential but not certain outcome. It is not a direct choice to harm the foetus, it is a choice to engage in a behaviour which may as an unintended side effect have a harmful impact on the foetus.

As an aside, medicines which can be harmful to the foetus are prescribed when there is a cogent reason to. It's not always a cut and dry issue, sometimes it's about harm reduction rather than elimination.

What disturbs me is the level to which people who think women don't have the right to bodily autonomy are willing to ignore reality when they come up with ideas about prevention. Chilling

I think women do have the right to bodily autonomy. But I can still think doing something that could cause harm to an unborn child is wrong.

That's a significant goalpost move but well done.

What disturbs me most tbh is how much you appear to relish the thought that women have the right to cause lifelong harm to an unborn child.

I fail to see how anything I have said could be interpreted in this way, and I believe this is your ideology blinding you. I said horrible, and I said tragic. I said these women needed help. How do those things add up to “relishing” anything, to you?

seaweedandmarchingbands

Because of your insistence that women have the right to harm their unborn child.

Someone above said that I'm just arguing semantics but I think it's important to change the emphasis here.

Saying that a pregnant woman has the right to bodily autonomy is very different to saying that she has the right to harm her unborn child.

The way that you are talking about this completely ignored the fact that once the woman has finished exercising her rights there will be a child who has to live with the effects of these rights for the rest of their life.

@PurpleDaisies it's not her body though is it? It's the baby who will be affected - have you never heard of foetal alcohol syndrome or about babies born addicted to drugs? What a ridiculous attitude

Because of your insistence that women have the right to harm their unborn child.

That doesn’t mean I “relish” anything. Your emphasis is wrong/invented. My insistence is on the fact that women have the legal right to do what I would 100% prefer them not to do: to ingest substances like alcohol and tobacco, and even illegal drugs, which might cause that harm. So that harm is not against the law, because of it was, they wouldn’t have the right to do those things. And they do.

Stop making things up. It’s not helping your argument.

and even illegal drugs, which might cause that harm. So that harm is not against the law, because of it was, they wouldn’t have the right to do those things. And they do.

Stop making things up. It’s not helping your argument.

How can they have the right to take illegal drugs?

How can they have the right to take illegal drugs?

It’s already been established that you can be prosecuted for possession, but not for taking particular substances.

Try reading the thread moondance. There are pages and pages of discussion about foetal alcohol syndrome.

If it isn’t the woman’s body, whose is it? We’re back to women as incubators again.

It’s already been established that you can be prosecuted for possession, but not for taking particular substances.

Well, unless they were held down and forced to ingest it, in order to take it they had to be in possession of it - which is illegal.

There's no point to this conversation. You aren't going to change your mind and I'm not going to change mine.

Well, unless they were held down and forced to ingest it, in order to take it they had to be in possession of it - which is illegal

But A) they are not arrested for the ingesting (the harm) but for the possession and B) they could easily ask someone else to administer it, removing the element of possession altogether.

You are quite simply wrong about this.

Oh give over.

These are children's lives. It's about time people started to actually consider them before deciding to inflict God knows what onto them.

Why have a child if you don't care enough about it to not risk inflicting a life long disability onto it?

No, there will be no “giving over”. You are wrong and trying to warp my position to make yourself sound less wrong. Not working.

My opinion is that it's wrong to harm an unborn child by drinking, smoking or taking drugs during pregnancy - if you think I'm wrong then your opinion must be that it's ok to harm an unborn child by doing those things.

I'm not twisting your words at all. That's my opinion and you've said clearly that I'm wrong. Ok. I'll continue to have that opinion.

My opinion is that it's wrong to harm an unborn child by drinking, smoking or taking drugs during pregnancy - if you think I'm wrong then your opinion must be that it's ok to harm an unborn child by doing those things.

My opinion is that it is legal to harm an unborn child by ingesting alcohol, tobacco or classified substances. You are conflating that with whether or not I think it is morally wrong, and pretending I have commented on the latter. I haven’t. Having the right to do something doesn’t make it morally right. That is a different issue, and you are pretending it is the same.

There isn't any difference at all between saying that a pregnant woman has the right to bodily autonomy within the law and that she also has the right to do things that would harm the foetus within the law. None. You cannot believe the first without also believing the second. If you dont believe the second, you dont believe the first. This is why tigger's forced chaining to beds plan, though as horrifying as it is unworkable, was at least logically consistent.

This is why tigger's forced chaining to beds plan, though as horrifying as it is unworkable, was at least logically consistent.

Yes. Tequila doesn’t want to admit that her model of understanding addiction is a deficit ‘sin’ model. She (or he) believes that substance abuse is a choice, as well as that an unborn child has personhood that can be abused. The logical outcome of her arguments is compulsion. Except she denies this.

Obviously she is also wrong. Substance abuse during pregnancy supersedes moral considerations. It’s an illness, and no more sinful than it is to pass on HIV to the foetus in the womb. The potential harm arises from sickness, not free choice.

My opinion is that it's wrong to harm an unborn child by drinking, smoking or taking drugs during pregnancy - if you think I'm wrong then your opinion must be that it's ok to harm an unborn child by doing those things.

No one has said it is right or good to harm an unborn child. Posters have said that women have a legal right to consume alcohol. This does not state or suggest that it is good or acceptable, but that there are limited legal powers to prevent this. You must realise this?

The only interventions possible are -

A) Physically prohibit women from drinking using detention. We have established this comes with it's own risks to mother and child, as well as being ethically unacceptable

So that's out, leaving

B) Attempt to reduce harm using engagement and support, antenatal and postnatal

Tequila what you are doing is hand-wringing. Insisting other posters do not care because they are not suggesting women are detained or coerced into abstinence is grossly distorting what has been said. No one wants FAS or FASD to exist, but we are essentially talking about the lesser of two evils here.

Substance abuse during pregnancy supersedes moral considerations. It’s an illness, and no more sinful than it is to pass on HIV to the foetus in the womb. The potential harm arises from sickness, not free choice.

I actually disagree with this. Someone with HIV has no power to change their status, and so assuming they are taking antiretrovirials I don't think it is quite comparable to alcohol addiction. An alcoholic will be physically and mentally compelled to consume alcohol, but they are ultimately responsible for their consumption.

That's not to say that I think moralising is helpful - for some people drinking is what (paradoxically) keeps them alive. But they are responsible, they have made a choice.