Disturbing

[velvetpage]

http://www.alternet.org/story/39075/?cID=157565#c157565

This is an article about an attempt to make smoking illegal - but only if you happen to be pregnant.

My first response was that this made sense. Then I thought about a few things, like the nature of addiction, the lack of access to health care in general and addiction recovery programs in particular, and the general demonization of moms-to-be who may end up avoiding prenatal care as a result. Call me a socialist, but wouldn't they be better off making anti-addiction programs and decent prenatal care available to help women become good moms, rather than criminalizing their risky but legal behaviours?

Comments

[mysirensong.livejournal.com]

Yes, those alternatives make a hell of a lot more sense. My sister in law would've avoided prenatal care in her first pregnancy completely, I think, and in her second pregnancy the doctor asked her to at least cut down to no more than 5 a day -- which she did, and was able to even do less than that towards the end, eventually quitting completely and hasn't touched one since despite my brother's continued 2 pack a day habit. If she'd gone in there and been yelled at and treated like a criminal for smoking at all she might not have gone back and she'd probably still be smoking. The doctor explained that while any cigarette smoke wasn't good for the baby, 5 or less a day was shown not to do any significant damage to her lung development or growth. This might be controversial, but to an addict, it was like permission to continue taking breaths -- and, again, I believe it's the reason she eventually quit.

[dagoski.livejournal.com]

This may not be a sinister attempt to make women into non-people, but rather a telling difference in the way people in different regions see things. The idea that mothers will make better choices if you provide better options is a very North Eastern way of seeing things. The West Coast has similar views, but thye still have a cowboy independence thing going on with personal responsibility. But in the South, everything is about moral and virtue. If you are good and virtuous, you automatically make the right choices(regardless of the options before you and the circumstances you live in) and God rewards you in this life. If you do not make the right choices, you are bad and must be punished. Tihs says as much about their understanding of addiction as it does about their view of women. The idea that addiction is a treatable illness is something that has no traction in much of the interious of the US. I think partially because they've had little experience with addiction outside of alcohol and nicotine until recently. For them, the even sincerely religous folk, addiction is first, last and always a moral failure to be corrected with punishment.

The article was pretty bad though. It made mention of a drive in Calfornia to criminalize breast feeding. First I heard of that. I wish the author said more about that because it sounds pretty outlandish.

[dagoski.livejournal.com]

Typo,interious should read interior. Interious is not word, but is sounds like it should be.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

That was in reference to a case mentioned further up, where a baby had meth in its system at the time of death and the authorities were charging her with murder for being on meth and breastfeeding.

As for the moral failure part - my dad used to see things that way. Since he's been on anti-depressants, he's changed his tune, but not enough to satisfy me. He still won't admit, for example, that people suffering from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome are more likely to commit crimes and that they should not be held as criminally responsible for it, because their brain chemistry doesn't allow them to plan ahead or recognize most elements of cause-and-effect. The "moral failure" attitude is a sign of a regressive worldview.

[dagoski.livejournal.com]

There's another aspect to children of drug addicted families as well. Even without the complications of fetal alcohol syndrome, these families seldom have the stability needed to teach kids a conventional sense of responsibility. It all gets down to whether you believe that virtue is an inherent trait or whether its taught.

One thing that is overlooked by the moralists about drug abuse is what drives people to abuse drugs. I draw a distinction betweem use and abuse. A lot of younger people will experiment just to see. But most anyone who abuses drugs and alcohol does so for a reason. I have never met a drug user who did not have some vast and profound psychological distress they were trying to obliterate with a substance. People who have something going for them do not fall into drug abuse. So, putting that into a Christian framework, how do you deal with drug users who commit criminal acts?

I think it's also hard for people who haver tried hard drugs to understand just how much the drug can take over your sense cause and effect and how they can utterly destroy your inhibition. Being high, especially on stimulants like meth, make you feel invulnerable and inerrant. Hell, how many people wake up from a drinking binge regretting what they did the night previously?

Sorry about the rant. I might post a longer elaboration on this line in my LJ. If I have time... Grad school comes first.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

In my experience, kids don't get diagnosed with FAS or FAE unless they are with a foster family or adoptive family. It should be fairly easy to compare for the purposes of a nature vs. nurture study - compare diagnosed cases who are with their birth parent(s), and diagnosed cases who have not been with their birth parent(s) significantly since infancy.

As for the rest, I see your points.

[urban-homestead.livejournal.com]

Some moms might avoid prenatal care. A couple might even manage to quit smoking. The rest of the smokers who find themselves pregnant will probably just have abortions rather than risk arrest.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Exactly. It's counter-productive if the goal is healthy families.

[purplkat.livejournal.com]

This article was discussed on the Snopes message board, and several people brought up something really interesting. They said that they'd gotten pregnant as smokers, and their doctors had told them to cut down, but not to try to quit.

Why? Because all of the aids to help people quit are not safe for pregnant woman, and in the end, the stress from trying to quit such a powerful addiction cold turkey is actually more dangerous to the baby than smoking is. All of them said that they cut back as much as the could, and their childen are healthy.

What this comes down to is two things: One, it is bad science, for the reasons outlined above. Two, it DOES turn pregnant women into non-people. It establishes the prcedent that once you're pregnant, the unborn child's well being is more important than your rights. These laws would never, ever be passed if they could be applied to men as well. Men wouldn't stand for that sort of thing.

[anidada.livejournal.com]

It establishes the prcedent that once you're pregnant, the unborn child's well being is more important than your rights.

And that, right there, is the whole point. That's what they're trying to do: establish precedent that the rights of the fetus outweigh the rights of the mother. It's all part-and-parcel of overturning Roe v. Wade.

[purplkat.livejournal.com]

A-yup.

[urban-homestead.livejournal.com]

I'm not convinced that true - a lot of women who support laws that reduce pregnant women's rights are actually pro-choice. The "every baby a wanted baby" idea means, for a lot of people I encounter on message boards, that women who aren't willing to quit smoking, exercise daily, eat the precise recommended diet, and follow their OB's advice slavishly etc have no right to have a baby and they should just get an abortion. Remember the woman charged with manslaughter after she refused a cesarian and one of her twins was stillborn? Largely, it was the pro-life groups that supported her. Time and again I read "pro-choice" women saying, "if she didn't care enough for her babies to give birth safely, she should have had an abortion".

When stuff like this comes up on message boards, it's usually women who are broadly pro-choice that seem to support them. Pro-life women are usually against them, on the grounds that they are likely to encourage abortion, and also because for pro-life women there's no escape route from pregnancy, so these laws are more frightening.

[anidada.livejournal.com]

I'm not talking about woman-to-woman pressure. I'm talking about governmental pressure and legislation, particularly in the States. The ability -- the right -- of women to govern their own bodies is being eroded (or flat out removed *eyes South Dakota*) by authorities, not by other moms, no matter where they stand on abortion. I'm glad I don't frequent the message boards you seem to encounter, because that sounds much more bizarre than some of the arguments (from both sides) that came up on the lactivism boards, when I was still reading them. :(

[perlandria.livejournal.com]

And this is why I hate the term pre-pregnant.

[purplkat.livejournal.com]

Did you see the article about how all women of childbearing years should treat themselves as 'pre-pregnant'? That article -really- pissed me off.

Yes, eating healthy, taking vitamins, getting exercise, and not smoking and drinking are all good things --- FOR THE PERSON WHO IS DOING THEM. It doesn't matter if that person could potentially have a baby or not, and implying that the only reason or the best reason or even a significant reason why women should stay healthy is because OMG won't someone think of the CHILDREN is ridiculous.

(Yes, I'm ranting. I'm still cranky about a conversation I overheard an hour ago or so over here.)

[dawn-again.livejournal.com]

Oh, they cant do that.

You see, then the US gov't would have to officially recognize tobacco as an addictive substance.

Which would mean they'd have to:
A) start regulating it tighter, which would cost them money,
B) stop paying subsidies to tobacco farmers, which would drive the market price up, which would really piss RJ Reynolds off, who then might stop making "campaign donations" to politicians in tobacco growing states, and
C) lose a huge source of revenue, as production of tobacco products, and by extension their exportation slows, lowering the revenues acquired through export taxes.

No, no, no. No addiction services for smokers.

Not that Im actually in favor of this kind of legislation. As others have pointed out, it's all about making the potential health of a fetus more important than a woman's rights in the struggle to overturn Roe Vs Wade. Not to mention setting the feminist movement back 100 years. Utterly deplorable.

But yanno, women are just babymaking machines who belong in the kitchen, and that's all that matters. *stabstabstab*

[redeem147.livejournal.com]

Speaking as one who grew up with a wonderful (I'm not being sarcastic, he was) dad, who smoked with us in the car and the windows rolled up, I think they should ban tobacco. Period.

Then get people the help they need to get off the stuff.

He did quit eventually btw.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

You see, I would support that effort a lot more than I support this one, because it would be applied evenly across the board. No one group would be singled out, their own desires weighing less than the needs of their unborn children. It's problematic, and overall I support an attempt to educate people into quitting/not starting on their own. But it's better than this suggestion.

[anidada.livejournal.com]

Word.

[michellinator.livejournal.com]

I'd be happy if they made ALL smoking illegal. But, I feel the need to point out that damage to an unborn child can also be caused by the father's smoking or consuming alcohol or drugs around the time of conception. I'll send the link next time I run across it... it's not very well-publicized... no money to be made in knocking the boys onto the wagon, too, I guess.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I didn't know that - I thought the danger was that they wouldn't be able to father a child at all, not that they'd cause birth defects.

[michellinator.livejournal.com]

I think the last time I ran across it, I was researching FAS. I was surprised, too, but the sperm brings half the genetic code to the party. It makes sense: damaged code or code-carriers = damaged kid.

The circulatory problems that come with smoking would make it harder to conceive... but I find it convenient that the lawmakers are still ignoring the effect of second-hand smoke, even on pregnant women. If a woman is going to be fined for bringing tobacco smoke and tar into her pregnant body, then anyone else forcing it in, with or without her consent, is also guilty.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

The thing with the sperm is that, generally, it takes an undamaged specimen to get to the point where fertilisation usually occurs. Smoking wouldn't change the actual genetic code so much as the health of the sperm. I would find it more logical that smoking = lower sperm count = male infertility.

And seeing as how neither of us has any real specialised knowledge here, I suppose we'll have to wait for more information. :)