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Should we lock up mothers who drink during pregnancy?
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Big_Bird

Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...

Posted: Mon Sep 14, 2009 1:00 am Post subject: Should we lock up mothers who drink during pregnancy?

'We didn't know our babies had been damaged by alcohol'

Quote:

Ryan and Tracey both suffered brain damage in the womb. Their adoptive mother, writing anonymously here, fears the children of Britain's bingeing generation face a life of emotional trauma

Quote:

When Martin Narey, chief executive of the children's charity Barnardo's, called for many more children to be taken into care at birth to stop them being damaged beyond repair by inadequate parenting, I thought of Ryan and Tracey (not their real names), two of our three adopted children. Our son has just passed his 21st birthday in prison. He is on remand, awaiting trial for various violent offences. Tracey, his 19-year-old half-sister, is doing better. But if she were not living at home, she would undoubtedly be putting herself in dangerously threatening sexual situations. She is simply not capable of living safely on her own.

Through the arduous and harrowing process of raising them, we have come to realise that children can be "damaged beyond repair" long before they are born. And the cure may require of society much more dramatic policies than merely taking babies away from inadequate parents.

We adopted Ryan as a one-year-old, a frail little chap who had been taken into intensive care because his birth mother had badly neglected him in the first couple of weeks after he was born. He had been fostered for almost all of his short life. The social workers told us that his mum "had learning difficulties" and had been abusing alcohol and illegal drugs.

Apart from his small size, Ryan's difficulties first surfaced when he was three. He was terribly clumsy � he kept tripping himself up each time he tried to run. Other indicators � delayed speech and concentration problems � took me to our GP. An occupational therapist told us our son was severely dyspraxic, a problem of damage to nerve cells in the brain

Quote:

It was while we were tussling with these questions that we came across the condition known as foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD). It affects children whose mothers drink alcohol during pregnancy. We discovered that research into FASD had been carried out for many years in the US and Canada. Professor Ann Streissguth of University of Washington School of Medicine, who began her research on foetal alcohol effects 30 years ago, found that children affected by prenatal alcohol exhibit anger and hyperactivity, impulsive behaviour and poor judgment. They have difficulty learning from the consequences of their behaviour and keeping themselves safe, their sexual behaviour is inappropriate and they have low self-esteem. A high proportion fail at school, abuse drugs and alcohol, and have trouble with the law. Few manage to live independently.

Suddenly many characteristics of our children's behaviour started to make sense. We knew that their birth mother was abusing alcohol and illegal drugs before Ryan was born, and she continued until Tracey was born. Could it be that the brains of both children were severely damaged before they were born? As we read further on this subject, we found that foetal alcohol spectrum disorder is the leading cause of preventable birth defects, and the most common known cause of cognitive impairment in children. A report published in 2007 by the British Medical Association, entitled 'Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders', suggested that, worldwide, perhaps one in every 100 babies is born with FASD.

Quote:

The consequence is that the UK is in danger of producing a generation of children born with irreversible brain damage caused by their mothers drinking during pregnancy. Permanently brain-damaged in the womb they will be impulsive, unable to plan or see the consequences of their actions, or to empathise with their victims; and too often they may end up committing senseless crimes.

If something close 1 in 100 are being born with FAS, this is a dreadful scourge on the world. Little babies being damaged unnecessarily and set up for a lifetime of problems, not to mention the problems they inflict on society.

But what to do? Perhaps offending mothers could be put on a probation as soon as they are known to be pregnant, and then incarcerated for the sake of their child's health if they continued to consume alchohol. But how could you go about implementing such legislation and still remain a free and progressive society? And how would you catch these offenders? How would you even know who was pregnant until it was too late? Probably more than half the women who find themselves pregnant are taken by surprise. I remember my own shock (and initial dismay) to find I was pregnant with my first son. We had been taken precautions (that failed once, and once is enough) and it was not expected. I hadn't been living the most health conscious lifestyle in 2 months before I conceived, though at least I hadn't been binge drinking, and I remember my fear that since my diet had not been varied (had been doing summer camps in an isolated area and they had been feeding us crap) I might have been deficient in folic acid and put my child at risk of spina bifida. Since so many women conceive unexpectedly, perhaps women should be educated to keep themselves 'stocked up' with minerals like folic acid and the like, and should consider that since pregnancy was always possible (even on the pill) that they should not live a lifestyle that put their potential child at risk. But that's just mad really....no-one thinks it's going to happen to them... Imagine if you were hitting the grog a lot, and then suddenly found you were pregnant...you would probably be at least 5 or 6 weeks gone before you realised what had happened, and you might already have done irreversible damage to your precious little poppet by that time.

ManintheMiddle

Joined: 20 Oct 2008

Posted: Mon Sep 14, 2009 3:28 am Post subject:

Maybe, and maybe sterilize them, too (he said only half in jest).

mises

Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired

Posted: Mon Sep 14, 2009 4:43 am Post subject:

Lock them up.

bacasper

Joined: 26 Mar 2007

Posted: Mon Sep 14, 2009 8:08 am Post subject:

mises wrote:

Lock them up.

Why, that's mighty libertarian of you!

Rolling Eyes

Educate the masses on the dangers of drinking during pregnancy, but no more police state measures! Fathers should also be getting involved to encourage the prospective mothers towards responsible behavior.

Or I guess you would support placing cameras in the homes of the pregnant to make sure they are not drinking, and GPS anklets on them to make sure they don't go to bars.

Go ahead, Godwin me: what a bunch of fascist pigs!

mises

Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired

Posted: Mon Sep 14, 2009 8:22 am Post subject:

bacasper wrote:

mises wrote:

Lock them up.

Why, that's mighty libertarian of you!

Well, maybe it is. I believe the fetus is a life. The state must protect persons and property. If one person is causing direct physical harm to another then the state is right to act.

On the other hand

Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue

Posted: Mon Sep 14, 2009 9:34 am Post subject:

mises wrote:

Lock them up.

You know, by some coincidence, I was just thinking about this issue the other day, and came up with this sort of Judith-Jarvis-Thomsonish thought experiment...

Suppose it were discovered that drinking a certain type of fruit juice debilitated sperm production, thus making a man more likely to generate sperm that produced offspring likely to have Downs Syndrome. Would we make it illegal for men to drink that fruit juice?

A bit about Ms. Thomson, my personal patron saint of debating

On the other hand

Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue

Posted: Mon Sep 14, 2009 9:38 am Post subject:

Quote:

I believe the fetus is a life.

If you mean a life in the same way that a born person is a life, then I assume you support the outlawing of abortion entirely?

Quote:

Why, that's mighty libertarian of you!

Dr. Morgentaler's lawyer, Morris Manning, was a right-wing libertarian who also supported the rights of workers not to pay union dies. I once saw him debate abortion on CBC with Morris Schumiatcher, another Canadian libertarian who was anti-abortion. Both are legitimate libertarian positions, depending on how the libertarian in question regards the fetus.

Pluto

Joined: 19 Dec 2006

Posted: Mon Sep 14, 2009 10:56 am Post subject:

So we've determined that this is a problem worthy of the state's attention? So what is the solution to this problem? Jailing naughty mothers to be for taking a swig or two? I see two downside risks, or perhaps consequences if you like, to this solution. 1) there will be less pregnancies. 2. There will be more abortions. I would say that mothers to be drinking or smoking is a problem. However, I'm not so sure the stick is the best way to deal with this problem.

Big_Bird

Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...

Posted: Mon Sep 14, 2009 5:54 pm Post subject:

Pluto wrote:

So we've determined that this is a problem worthy of the state's attention? So what is the solution to this problem? Jailing naughty mothers to be for taking a swig or two? I see two downside risks, or perhaps consequences if you like, to this solution.

We are hardly talking about mothers who take a 'swig or two.'

And the results are pretty ugly:

Wikipedia wrote:

Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) is a disorder that can occur to the embryo when a pregnant woman ingests alcohol during pregnancy. An ingestion of alcohol does not always result in FAS. The current recommendation of the US Surgeon General is not to drink alcohol at all during pregnancy.[1]

Alcohol crosses the placental barrier and can stunt fetal growth or weight, create distinctive facial stigmata, damage neurons and brain structures, and cause other physical, mental, or behavioral problems.[2][3][4] Surveys found that in the United States, 10-15% of pregnant women admit to having recently used alcohol, and up to 30% use alcohol at some point during pregnancy.[5][6][7] The main effect of FAS is permanent central nervous system damage, especially to the brain. Developing brain cells and structures are underdeveloped or malformed by prenatal alcohol exposure, often creating an array of primary cognitive and functional disabilities (including poor memory, attention deficits, impulsive behavior, and poor cause-effect reasoning) as well as secondary disabilities (for example, mental health problems, and drug addiction).[4][8] The risk of brain damage exists during each trimester, since the fetal brain develops throughout the entire pregnancy.[9]

Fetal alcohol exposure is the leading known cause of mental retardation in the Western world.[10][dubious � discuss] In the United States the FAS prevalence rate is estimated to be between 0.2 and 2.0 cases per 1,000 live births, comparable to or higher than other developmental disabilities such as Down syndrome or spina bifida.[11][dubious � discuss] The lifetime medical and social costs of each child with FAS are estimated to be as high as US$800,000.[12]

This is another page dealing with the condition, complete with illustrations of how it deforms a child's appearance.

http://www.aafp.org/afp/20050715/279.html

Quote:

1) there will be less pregnancies.

2. There will be more abortions.

Not everyone sees this as a problem.

Quote:

I would say that mothers to be drinking or smoking is a problem. However, I'm not so sure the stick is the best way to deal with this problem.

It's a big problem - a lifelong problem, that these unfortunate children have to bear right up until the moment they die, and it should be addressed. Education should be the main weapon against it. However, it is likely that many of the women binge drinking through their pregnancies are probably not going to respond to education anyway. But of course imprisoning women is not something we could do easily in our society. Perhaps we could put a huge tax on alcohol and try to make it less accessible. That is easier said than done though - recalling America's messy prohibition of alcohol.

And if we did go the route of confining women, I don't see that it would have to be a harsh prison-like experience. They could create some sort of 5 star hotel experience, where the women were housed in very pleasant conditions, and where they could have a lot of fun, have visitors whenever they wanted, and take free courses in this that and the other, and a lot of support and kindness and therapy to try to address their addictions. Just a few months of confinement to see their babies clear.

Expensive. But probably saving society a great deal of money and misery in the longterm.

Last edited by Big_Bird on Mon Sep 14, 2009 6:07 pm; edited 1 time in total

Moldy Rutabaga

Joined: 01 Jul 2003
Location: Ansan, Korea

Posted: Mon Sep 14, 2009 6:07 pm Post subject:

[....] Last edited by Moldy Rutabaga on Thu Jan 02, 2014 2:03 am; edited 1 time in total

bacasper

Joined: 26 Mar 2007

Posted: Mon Sep 14, 2009 7:31 pm Post subject:

Moldy Rutabaga wrote:

We make it a criminal offence to birth a child with FAS and prosecute the mother and possibly those who supplied her with alcohol if she is a minor.

So the cure for an FAS infant is an absent, incarcerated mother???

What were you thinking?

mises

Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired

Posted: Mon Sep 14, 2009 7:35 pm Post subject:

Quote:

If you mean a life in the same way that a born person is a life, then I assume you support the outlawing of abortion entirely?

Am exhausted today so forgive some sloppy thinking (more than usual).

I used both "life" and "person" because I couldn't decide which was best. I do not support criminalizing abortion but at the moment the woman decides to keep the baby, it must then be protected as a human life by the state. Lots of wiggle room there, but this topic can never be airtight.

Underwaterbob

Joined: 08 Jan 2005
Location: In Cognito

Posted: Mon Sep 14, 2009 8:48 pm Post subject:

Where's Rteacher to tell us the kids deserve it for something they did in a past life?

Sorry, off-topic.

I'm somehow reminded of Keanu Reeve's speech in parenthood:

Quote:

You know, Mrs. Buckman, you need a license to buy a dog, to drive a car - hell, you even need a license to catch a fish. But they'll let any [graphic expletive] a**hole be a father.[parent]

Also somewhat pertinent: the introduction of American health care just might help with this problem.

Moldy Rutabaga

Joined: 01 Jul 2003
Location: Ansan, Korea

Posted: Mon Sep 14, 2009 9:06 pm Post subject:

[....] Last edited by Moldy Rutabaga on Thu Jan 02, 2014 2:03 am; edited 1 time in total

bacasper

Joined: 26 Mar 2007

Posted: Mon Sep 14, 2009 9:36 pm Post subject:

On the other hand wrote:

mises wrote:

Lock them up.

You don't need a hypothetical for this. Alcohol adversely affects spermatogenesis. So it would be unfair or sexist if we did not lock up drinking fathers-to-be as well.

So how far do we go with this? Lock up smoking mothers, too? Prohibit the sale of alcohol (again)? Penalize dad's failure to get a promotion? Why not criminalize every parental imperfection since it can lead to decreased quality of life in offspring?

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