"Drinking in pregnancy could be made illegal"

[trevortrevorslattery]

Errrrr:

Link here

It's a story about a specific case where a child has suffered as a result of her mother's alcohol intake whilst pregnant, but

Clare Murphy from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service said the case risks setting a dangerous precedent.

“If a woman finds herself in this situation we really need them to confide in health professionals, not criminalising pregnant women when what they need is help and resources," she said.

I think this is a feminist issue because it would take away a woman's autonomy over her own body. I am not advocating that women should get pissed all the time whilst pregnant, for the avoidance of doubt.

Hopefully it's not likely that this would ever become law though.

I've worked with young people with FAS and it's a life long devestating preventable disability. I judge women who drink so much in pregnancy that they ruin the life of their child(assuming they know they're pregnant)

However, drinking in pregnancy can't be made illegal when you can terminate a healthy fetus to 24 weeks and some with disabilities to term.

Women have the right to do selfish things such as take drugs, smoke and drink alcohol.

I think it's completely disgusting but should not be made illegal. (and yes, I know substance abuse is a mental health problem)

The single biggest predictor of whether a child in the womb will be damaged, is if the mother carrying that child is a victim of domestic violence.

3/4 of physical abuse, starts when a woman is pregnant or in the first year after giving birth.

But for some reason, the media likes to talk more about alcohol damaging foetuses, than domestic violence damaging foetuses.

Can't think why.

I was listening to the coverage of this on 5live. They, and other media seem to have missed a point that some here have touched upon. Could this result in more abortions? As in, a woman drinks heavily in pregnancy, there is a high chance of FAS, and possibly criminal charges / a prison term. Or she could avoid that by abortion. Which is perfectly legal up to term in babies with disabilities.
The being able to abort foetuses with disabilities til birth thing is horrible, but it seems so odd that if you essentially create a disability in a child you might be able to kill it with no repercussions but you'll be in trouble if you choose to give birth. Odd and wrong. I'm quite anti abortion for this board but in this case I think pro life and pro choice are entirely on the same page.

Askbasil. Thank you for that. It makes sense.

How about smoking? And passive smoking from partner/other people once baby is born?

Good point basil

Its just like the personhood laws that exist in some parts of the USA.
Have one glass of wine then miscarry and look you're up on manslaughter charges!

how about breastfeeding?

or drinking in the evening while the kids in bed - to the point when one has consumed enough alcohol to become unable to drive to a child to A&E in the middle of the night?

would those things be illegal too?

I'm not a drinker and I would prefer if women made a choice to avoid alcohol, smoking, taking drugs etc while pg/bf or but to make it illegal to consume any alcohol at all is OTT to say the least.

And I do wonder how pg/bf women taking wine during Holy Communion could ever be made illegal

is excessive drinking in pregnancy a real issue? I mean is the court considering criminalising the majority of women for something only a handful of women have ever done?
Also if FAS is yet to be proven why is this even in court?

Am I right in thinking that they don't know how much alcohol, at which gestation might cause FAS?

I don't understand how they could say this was criminal damage when there is not a law against it and it isn't clear exactly when that damage occurred. If she had had a miscarriage instead would that have been murder?

I find it disgusting that a local authority are using public resources to take on this case which is not in the public interest and could have serious consequences for women's bodily autonomy. Over what is essentially an accounting issue.

The child needs to be cared for and the cost of that care will need to be met by the public. Now we're not only paying for the child's care but also for both sides of a legal battle over which part of public finances foots the bill. If the child's special needs were caused by a genetic disorder, they would have just had to provide the care out of the LA budget.

If they don't have a big enough social care budget then they could have argued that they need more money from other LA departments to fund social care, increased council tax or made the case for greater funding for central government. Instead they have chosen to argue that a foetus is a person, and all the knock on consequences that may have for women's rights over their bodily autonomy.

We need to educate and support women who may have problems with alcohol/drugs/smoking etc not criminalise them.

I say this as someone drinks practically no alcohol (glass of Baileys at Christmas/Birthdays) even when I'm not pregnant or breastfeeding.

Jeremy Vine's about to cover this now.

Is this a concept that originated in the States? On my last few visits to the USA I've notice the occasional poster in bars warning against drinking at all during pregnancy, something I've never seen in the UK.

I don't know a huge amount about FAS but as I understand it it's a spectrum of issues that can be very mild or quite severe, and it's not known what level of consumption by the mother results in what level of disability in the child, hence the recommendation to avoid alcohol entirely "to be safe".

Batgirl that si an interesting point. I am 100% pro-choice, and I don't altogether agree, mostly because I can't imagine that happening in reality (a woman who isn't able to control her alcohol use throughout a pregnancy isn't going to suddenly wake up in month 8 and go, "Oh shit, I might have damaged my baby, I'd better terminate or I'll be in big trouble.") Also as far as I know FAS can't be diagnosed in utero or even at birth - it manifests later in the child's life, apart from the distinctive facial features, which again aren't always apparent at birth.

Yes but they're quite willing to tell women to avoid alcohol altogether "to be safe" but they're not willing to tell us to avoid everyone who smokes, including partners, irritating in-laws etc., to tell us to avoid car journeys in case we crash, to avoid going to work if we feel a bit stressed etc... or to tell men not to drink just before conception or to avoid beating us up.

It's so clearly about controlling women. The whole thing. And yeah, I think you've got it spot on SpiritedQuill, it's basically an incredibly irresponsible and feckless use of public funds by this LA.

I don't see how a child receiving payment for being a victim of crime leads directly to women being prosecuted for drinking.

Even if the civil claim was to succeed, that still does not create a new criminal offence. Parliament would need to pass new legislation to make drinking while pregnant a criminal offence. It would take a perverse reading of any existing law to say that police could already arrest women for drinking, and even a judgment in the child's favour would not change that position a jot.

Basil you've hit the nail on the head there. I had no idea till my midwife asked me about dv that it was so common in pregnancy - its really not known or spoken about at all.

Compare that the the whole no wine during pregnancy? Everyone knows that - even though we don't really know how much it does affect the baby .

AskBasil I completely agree.

You can argue round the edges of it - it's a simple thing, it's something any woman can take charge of (unlike a partner's behaviour or a car crash, say), but ultimately it's about control.

I wonder, though, if we had public health campaigns saying things like "Is your wife having a baby? Step up and do more housework, you lazy git" or, "Are you stressing out your pregnant employee? Watch out or she'll sue you", or even "Don't sell alcohol to pregnant women or you'll lose your licence" it wouldn't just make pregnant women even more public property than they are now.

amethyst I think you're right that its not exactly going to affect the birth rate on a statistically significant level. But if someone was unsure about continuing the pregnancy it might be a contributing factor.
What I was trying to get to was the paradoxical nature of the situation. Usually if you do something bad, death is the worst outcome, whether that's beating them up, bullying, road accident, medical error, neglect. But here, killing the foetus is acceptable, yet causing disability isn't. I'm struggling to get my head around that.

Ok I've got it now. Its because in this situation it is a foetus being killed (foetus=not a person) whereas its an actual born person who is living with the disability.
Still don't agree with it but at least now I understand what I'm not agreeing with!

"I don't see how a child receiving payment for being a victim of crime leads directly to women being prosecuted for drinking. "

Because how can someone be a victim of a crime without said crime being defined?

Im curious as to who is pushing this, which focus group etc felt that this above many other things needs criminalizing?

Breaking, there's no focus group. It's a test case - if the child can win compensation for its disabilities from Victim Support, then I imagine many other FAS sufferers (or the local authorities currently funding their needs) will follow suit.

There was a thing about this earlier on Facebook.

Loads of people saying that this was about policing women's bodies and similar.

Loads of others saying things along the lines of 'if you have a single drink when you're pregnant, you don't deserve to have children' 'if you drink while pregnant, you should be criminalised' and on and on.

Little game for you. Guess which comments came predominantly from women, and which came predominantly from men.