Women should be prevented from drug taking in pregnancy

[Caterpillarsleftfoot]

I have just come back from a holiday with my nephew's who were exposed to drugs in utero (adopted). I'm also a school teacher who has taught drug and alcohol exposed children.

Seeing the challenges they face made me think why on earth it is allowed.

If you hurt your child every day when they are 6 months, 2 years, 5 years old then they are removed from your care. Why are you allowed to hurt an unborn baby? If a woman is known to take drugs or daily alcohol, then why is she not taken into a protective custody in a hospital/ secure unit for the remainder of the pregnancy to prevent her harming the child?

Stopping a baby from suffering a preventable illness is not eugenics.

Eugenics would be killing all people with FAS or terminating babies suspected of FAS. Trying to stop women drinking in pregnancy is not eugenics

Of course it is.

Eugenics is not killing people

Eugenics is stopping a section of society from having babies

So no, killing people with FAS is no eugenics. Stopping people with FAS from having babies would be eugenics for example

Regardless of anything else it's just not practically possible.
Someone makes a referral and then the woman is locked up in a 'unit' for 9 months?
Where will the funding come from for all these units - which will be expensive due to specialised population, all the staff, loss of earnings, childcare/accommodation for other children. Do older children get placed in care, and what are the knock-on psychological effects on the family, and effects of further overstretching the care system.

Exactly this. How do you police it and where do you draw the line? Is some spotty Saturday boy in Tesco allowed to deny a pregnant woman a bottle of wine? Because “what if”…

I am genuinely so shocked that people are so pro women

Shocking isn't it. Women are people too.

Also it puts the burden (or opportunity) on people to police pregnant people who are not qualified to do so.

Even if a midwife or doctor advises don’t do X or do Y, it is just advice. No one can make or prevent a woman, pregnant or otherwise from doing what they want or need.

When breastfeeding my newborn I was denied an over the counter painkiller from my local pharmacy despite being advised by two midwives that I needed it.
A minor example, but if you start allowing lay people to regulate others’ bodies and choices then you are removing agency from the woman herself.

Tbh what's being suggested is a Saturday boy in tesco is allowed to deny any women under the age of say 50 because "what if"

Because the new rights of the foetus will overwrite the rights of any pregnant and "has the potential to be pregnant women"

I understand your emotions over this, esp when you can see the consequences in your family.

However it is simply untenable.
People don't report actual children being abused. They aren't going to be reporting Gina who's in the pub every Saturday. Most people have no idea what other people take.

And by the time you've had someone reported, investigated, monitored and then finally action taken, any damage would be largely done.

You've clearly got limited scope on your "pro-choice" with little understanding of how long it can take after the 20 week scan to have a serious condition identified and have time to decide what to do

https://www.history.com/topics/european-history/eugenics

The section on Genetic Engineering is the most relevant part.

So you want women to be incarcerated for drinking alcohol, something that's currently legal. But just women and just women of childbearing age?

https://www.newsweek.com/woman-jailed-endangering-fetus-wasnt-pregnant-1761547

It's not hard to see disgruntled ex or family members using this against women of child bearing ages.

Only if you wholly define eugenics as what the Nazis did. There’s a bit more to it than that.

When breastfeeding my newborn I was denied an over the counter painkiller from my local pharmacy despite being advised by two midwives that I needed it.

I was denied gaviscon for heart burn in pg by some chemists - but yes getting treatment while bf for anything was really hard and had more than one suggestion by HCP I stop (which for something serious I would have) even when there often was a possible safe treatment.

Yeah, this would start creating the framework for "foetal personhood" that would see women stripped of reproductive rights and open us to this kind of bullshit.

People who are denying that this type of enforced protection of the foetus' health in utero has anything to do with abortion rights are deluding themselves.

Only if you wholly define eugenics as what the Nazis did. There’s a bit more to it than that.

What else do you think is eugenics @notlucreziaborgia? Vaccines, modern healthcare, TFMR? Not everything is eugenics.

Wanting to prevent FAS is not and never will be eugenics

As I said, terminating FAS babies for being FAS babies is eugenics. Killing FAS sufferers is eugenics.

Not wanting pregnant women to inflict FAS on a fetus is not eugenics. You don't need to misuse words like that to prove whatever point you want to make (I'm not even sure what point it is).

Only if you wholly define eugenics as what the Nazis did. There’s a bit more to it than that.

Should be in bold

But it wouldn't just be pregnant women. It would be any women who were able to be pregnant. So between, say, ages 10 and 50.

Because we already know that due to overzealous application of the "do they look 25" thing (which in itself is partly ridiculous) people are sometimes stopped from buying wine if they have a child with them. Imagine if you rocked up with a trolley with some wine in it, because you were planning a surprise party for your husband's birthday and the overzealous cashier called security? and you protested a bit too loud, maybe you're from a minority group, and the next thing you're being carted off in handcuffs?

Frankly? this sounds like an undergraduate ethics essay that someone forgot to write and is getting us to write it for them.

none of it is ethical.

PP mentioned upthread that they read that in the US drug taking pregnant women who had been incarcerated had better outcomes than those not in prison. For sure they did. 100% to be guaranteed: because they received actual treatment. Plenty of other women in the US, including those working but not getting insurance - let alone those taking drugs etc - don't get any bloody treatment.

Where we should be focussing our efforts is prevention (education education education) and support (for those who do fall through the cracks) but not judgement. And not prison. (unless they commit an actual crime - which some drug-taking is, of course, but their punishment/sentence shouldn't be influenced by their pregnancy)

not sure why the needle was actually required. In that case, someone with an actual recorded phobia should have discussions with their health-care team and my best guess would be an ECS with general anasthetic (possible?) (I have no idea how anything like this works)

not waiting until the last possible minute then forcing her to do something that could possibly give her PTSD. I would be interesting to see what happened after this event, tbh.

Yeah, I'd be interested where this story actually comes from.

Exactly. With the absurd logic that is being spoken on here, could you not argue that women taking folic acid during pregnancy to prevent spina bifida is eugenics?

We don't force women to take folic acid. It's only advice. Advice is fine. Trying to enforce behaviour is not fine.

Whether it's fine or not to intervene is a complex issue. What we can say is: it's not eugenics to not want babies to be inflicted with FAS.

We can have every sympathy with the mother, and hopefully, all of us agree that that is not a a good outcome for a child.

Of course FAS is a bad outcome - but the state can't start dictating to half the population what they put into their bodies.

I find it very odd that women would be in favour of this - so very much a case of turkeys voting for Christmas - and the othering of women with addictions.