Should it be illegal for a pregnant woman to smoke or drink?

Do you think that it should be illegal for a pregnant woman to drink, smoke, or deliberately do anything that could impede the health of their unborn baby?

Interesting topic. As much as I thought that dick head Georgia Rep. Bobby Franklin is a dick head for his miscarriage-death penalty bill, I think this is something different. I don't think this is a women's rights issue. It's more about child abuse. Does anyone approve of a parent letting a child drink and smoke? I wouldn't have a problem with taking away a woman's "freedom" to do the same to protect a helpless life who can't look out for it self.

alan smithee wrote:Interesting topic. As much as I thought that dick head Georgia Rep. Bobby Franklin is a dick head for his miscarriage-death penalty bill, I think this is something different. I don't think this is a women's rights issue. It's more about child abuse. Does anyone approve of a parent letting a child drink and smoke? I wouldn't have a problem with taking away a woman's "freedom" to do the same to protect a helpless life who can't look out for it self.

Well said.

This is a conundrum question, pitting personal freedom against an obligation not to harm another. (Almost like not mutilating a baby boy's genitals)

Also it should be illegal for smokers to force their children to breathe second-hand smoke. I remember gagging in the back seat of the car while my dad puffed away.

I definitely think it should be illegal if they KNOW they are pregnant to intentionally do these things which unlike a lot of risks to the baby over the course of 9 months, CAN be avoided.

But the two do have their differences in that no cigarettes have ANY health benefits, but, unless I'm wrong, haven't doctors decided that a couple glasses of wine over the course of the pregnancy is safe? But if you drink regularly you sure as hell can't do that and expect for there to be no problems.

Although it's odd because in older times when they didn't know better, pregnant women drank and smoked all the time and a lot of the kids turned out fine, so what's up with that? Of course for every kid that turned out fine there were probably just as many if not more that had problems they at the time couldn't figure out where they came from, but still in order for people to think it was normal, they'd have to be putting out a lot of healthy or what they thought to be healthy kids, wouldn't they?

So, do you mean put the woman in prison if she's caught smoking a cigarette? For how long? Don't we have enough people in jail for bullshit charges? The U.S. leads the world in the percentage of their populations who are incarcerated.

I can't believe that the American Sheeple are still so fucking stupid to the ploys of self-serving politicians! What these vile crooks do is come up with all these new laws to draw attention to themselves. The more name-recognition they have, the better chance they have of being re-elected.

And, in the end that's what this is all about, these miserable bastards looking to keep their sorry asses in elected office so they'll keep all those cushy government benefits and won't have to actually do any real work to earn them!!

I think it should be illegal for a pregger woman to smoke and drink, but its not realistic. She can let all that shit go for 9 months. If a baby is born and has health problems directly from the mom smoking, drinking or doing drugs, then CPS should get involved cause already she's shown that she's gonna be a negligent parent.

alan smithee wrote:Interesting topic. As much as I thought that dick head Georgia Rep. Bobby Franklin is a dick head for his miscarriage-death penalty bill, I think this is something different. I don't think this is a women's rights issue. It's more about child abuse. Does anyone approve of a parent letting a child drink and smoke? I wouldn't have a problem with taking away a woman's "freedom" to do the same to protect a helpless life who can't look out for it self.

While I'm completely against smoking during pregnancy, and never drank during any of my pregnancies, I think this would be an unjust law. Do we REALLY want to go down that road? Woman in Europe drink wine all the time while pregnant and their children appear to be fine. The problem with alcohol and pregnancy has more to do with heavy drinking than say, a glass of wine a night or a few nights a week with dinner. In fact, my OB recommended I drink wine near the end to try to relax (but I didn't do it because I'm paranoid).

Aside from that, drinking is most harmful during the late first trimester/early 2nd trimester when women may not even know that they are pregnant.

And aside from THAT, unless we're going to ban abortion, then I don't see how we could pass a law like this...It's okay to kill your baby but it's not okay to do something that may or may not have a negative effect on them? Also where does it end? Are we going to make a rule that they can't eat sushi, soft cheese, deli meat, paint their nails, clean with chemicals, eat tuna, etc...There's a hundred things that women are supposed to avoid during pregnancy that half of them don't even know about.

thepossiblepolice wrote:While I'm completely against smoking during pregnancy, and never drank during any of my pregnancies, I think this would be an unjust law. Do we REALLY want to go down that road? Woman in Europe drink wine all the time while pregnant and their children appear to be fine. The problem with alcohol and pregnancy has more to do with heavy drinking than say, a glass of wine a night or a few nights a week with dinner. In fact, my OB recommended I drink wine near the end to try to relax (but I didn't do it because I'm paranoid).

Aside from that, drinking is most harmful during the late first trimester/early 2nd trimester when women may not even know that they are pregnant.

And aside from THAT, unless we're going to ban abortion, then I don't see how we could pass a law like this...It's okay to kill your baby but it's not okay to do something that may or may not have a negative effect on them? Also where does it end? Are we going to make a rule that they can't eat sushi, soft cheese, deli meat, paint their nails, clean with chemicals, eat tuna, etc...There's a hundred things that women are supposed to avoid during pregnancy that half of them don't even know about.

Very well said. There's the door to making abortion illegal or a lot of higher taxes to build all those prisons.

thepossiblepolice wrote:While I'm completely against smoking during pregnancy, and never drank during any of my pregnancies, I think this would be an unjust law. Do we REALLY want to go down that road? Woman in Europe drink wine all the time while pregnant and their children appear to be fine. The problem with alcohol and pregnancy has more to do with heavy drinking than say, a glass of wine a night or a few nights a week with dinner. In fact, my OB recommended I drink wine near the end to try to relax (but I didn't do it because I'm paranoid).

Aside from that, drinking is most harmful during the late first trimester/early 2nd trimester when women may not even know that they are pregnant.

And aside from THAT, unless we're going to ban abortion, then I don't see how we could pass a law like this...It's okay to kill your baby but it's not okay to do something that may or may not have a negative effect on them? Also where does it end? Are we going to make a rule that they can't eat sushi, soft cheese, deli meat, paint their nails, clean with chemicals, eat tuna, etc...There's a hundred things that women are supposed to avoid during pregnancy that half of them don't even know about.

Agreed. I've seen some women smoke cigs while they were pregnant. Definitely not often, but they had a few cigs throughout their pregnancy. They had perfectly healthy babies. It's definitely not advisable and I'd never do it, but trying to make it illegal just opens the door to making abortion illegal.

Nystyle709 wrote:

thepossiblepolice wrote:While I'm completely against smoking during pregnancy, and never drank during any of my pregnancies, I think this would be an unjust law. Do we REALLY want to go down that road? Woman in Europe drink wine all the time while pregnant and their children appear to be fine. The problem with alcohol and pregnancy has more to do with heavy drinking than say, a glass of wine a night or a few nights a week with dinner. In fact, my OB recommended I drink wine near the end to try to relax (but I didn't do it because I'm paranoid).

Aside from that, drinking is most harmful during the late first trimester/early 2nd trimester when women may not even know that they are pregnant.

And aside from THAT, unless we're going to ban abortion, then I don't see how we could pass a law like this...It's okay to kill your baby but it's not okay to do something that may or may not have a negative effect on them? Also where does it end? Are we going to make a rule that they can't eat sushi, soft cheese, deli meat, paint their nails, clean with chemicals, eat tuna, etc...There's a hundred things that women are supposed to avoid during pregnancy that half of them don't even know about.

Agreed. I've seen some women smoke cigs while they were pregnant. Definitely not often, but they had a few cigs throughout their pregnancy. They had perfectly healthy babies. It's definitely not advisable and I'd never do it, but trying to make it illegal just opens the door to making abortion illegal.

Now that you put it that way....