Poll of the Day > Should the mothers of children with FAS or NAS face some sort of punishment?

(+) Yeah! (+)

FAS refers to fetal alcohol syndrome and NAS to neonatal abstinence syndrome, basically should the mother be held accountable if her baby is born negatively effected by her drinking or using drugs during her pregnancy is my question.

I'll admit I haven't done a ton of research but it seems like currently in most states if either of these conditions are caught when the baby is still in the hospital, they can be removed from the mother, or at the very least CPS does get involved, but the thing is that testing is rare and most babies with them do end up simply going home with no one the wiser. I'm not saying we should make testing mandatory or anything, but say randomly a test was done and it came back positive. In that situation what action do you think should be taken against the one undeniablly responsible for irrevocably harming her child before they were even born?

going G. Other on this one since we're in pea-brain land today

---

ReturnOfFa posted...

going G. Other on this one since we're in pea-brain land today

Elaborate.

Its a tough call honestly. A lot of addicts are sick people in need of help, but the child doesnt deserve a lifetime of health problems and developing issues.

I think there are some mothers who are just heartless who I think undoubtedly deserve some kind of punishment. But with group homes and CPS having such an abysmal reputation as far as how kids are mistreated and abused in the system, Im not sure if any good would come from further charging the parents with the crime.

Its a complicated and very sad issue. I dont know what the right solutions are but I think one thing we know we can do is teach young people about how babies can be born with all sorts of problems that can cause them to suffer their entire lives. You cant get through to everyone but you can get through to some.

---

Should they? Probably. Will they? No. The muh body, muh choice movement pretty much exempts them from consequences. But even outside that, they'd likely be exempted in the case of alcoholism since it'd basically be punishing somebody for being mentally ill... although I guess alcoholics can still be charged with parental neglect so... idk. Generally unless the unborn child is killed through a mother's neglect, you're not going to see the mother charged with anything and even then there aren't a lot of states that would charge them.

Logically parental negligence resulting in harm to a child would result in consequences, but the law has been pretty fucked up. Bartenders got in trouble for trying limit pregnant women's alcohol consumption, which is kinda ridiculous since they're literally supposed to cut people off when they feel there's a health risk.


---

Obviously, yes. It is common sense for pregnant mother to lay off the drugs and alcohol.
---

Zeus posted...

The muh body, muh choice movement pretty much exempts them from consequences.

It stops being my body, my choice when they decide to have the child

---

Death penalty

---

Hop103 posted...

Obviously, yes. It is common sense for pregnant mother to lay off the drugs and alcohol.

the scary thing is that common sense isnt all that common, theres millions, probably billions of people out there right now without much or any of it

---

but what good does separating a mother from their newborn do, what does that accomplish

shouldn't be punished, should be more focused on rehabilitation.

---

Zareth posted...

It stops being my body, my choice when they decide to have the child

They dont always choose to? No birth control is 100%
---

LinkPizza posted...

They dont always choose to? No birth control is 100%

Well by the time they know they're pregnant they should stop drinking, otherwise they're deliberately harming the child

---

Zareth posted...

Well by the time they know they're pregnant they should stop drinking, otherwise they're deliberately harming the child

some of them cant help themselves. Its absolutely justified to be angry at them because it harms the child, but sometimes theyre suffering from an illness that literally attacks and impairs the part of the brain that gives people self control

and then there are some young people that somehow never really payed attention whenever people talked about not doing drugs or drinking during pregnancy or theyre the types to chalk it all up to conspiracy or whatever because hey we know these other people who drank during pregnancy and their kid is a doctor now or some crap like that

not saying they should be absolved of the choices they make, I just think that its a complex issue

---

Assuming the substances they used are legal they wouldn't be charged with the use of those substances. They can use those substances without infraction. The infraction would be that they got pregnant. Do you want to make pregnancy a crime?

Reigning_King posted...

NAS to neonatal abstinence syndrome

If they were abstinent it seems unlikely they would be pregnant. Or is this meant to indicate a lack of abstinence?

Zareth posted...

It stops being my body, my choice when they decide to have the child

No it doesn't.

---

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

Assuming the substances they used are legal they wouldn't be charged with the use of those substances. They can use those substances without infraction. The infraction would be that they got pregnant. Do you want to make pregnancy a crime?

Drinking alcohol is legal and driving is legal. Drinking a tiny bit of alcohol before driving to the point it probably won't negatively impact your driving and put others at risk is legal. Getting completely shitfaced and driving is illegal. Just replace driving with pregnancy and I'm asking if there should be legal consequences for a situation where a pregnant woman drinks heavily enough that her child is given a life long impairment.

If they were abstinent it seems unlikely they would be pregnant. Or is this meant to indicate a lack of abstinence?

NAS is something the baby is born with, effectively it means that because of the mother's drug habits the baby is literally born addicted to drugs and goes through painful and sometimes even life threatening withdrawal after being physically separated from their drug supply (mom). The long term effects aren't as well understood but mostly because if a baby is born with NAS chances are their home life is going to be full of other horrible things and when they come out all screwed up as older children and teens it's hard to say which negative causes them to end up like that.

No it doesn't.

If that's your opinion, well enough, but I have to ask at what point does the personhood and right to not suffer unwarranted harm of a baby come into being in your opinion?

If a heavily pregnant woman, far enough along that the baby could hypothetically survive outside the womb, physically assaulted herself or purposely ingested poison in such a way that her baby was born with crippling injuries/illness would you consider that perfectly acceptable since the baby was still inside her body at the time?

Zareth posted...

Well by the time they know they're pregnant they should stop drinking, otherwise they're deliberately harming the child

They might. Though, they may not know. I think it was said that about 1 in every 400 or 500 women get to 20 weeks before finding out their pregnant. Some even go the whole way. And it can be harder to find doctors to give you abortions later than 12 weeks in most cases, I believe. And many have different things going on like Mead said. That said, I still think its their body, so their choice Even if you dont agree with their choice
---

These mothers need help and monitoring. Incarceration, taking the child away, and making an official record, is not help. Problems like this are very complex and don't have a multiple choice answer.

benbeverfaqs posted...

These mothers need help and monitoring. Incarceration, taking the child away, and making an official record, is not help. Problems like this are very complex and don't have a multiple choice answer.

This is splitting things and going on bit of a tangent, but specifically in the case of illegal drug use, I mean... they're illegal. Surely there should be some punishment for breaking the law. Addiction or not ultimately they're still responsible for their actions.

Reigning_King posted...

Getting completely shitfaced and driving is illegal. Just replace driving with pregnancy and I'm asking if there should be legal consequences for a situation where a pregnant woman drinks heavily enough that her child is given a life long impairment.

Driving requires that a person is licensed. Substituting pregnancy suggests they need the permission of the state to have children. I think China does something like that. Any step in that direction the laws take is too far for my liking.

Reigning_King posted...

the baby is literally born addicted to drugs and goes through painful and sometimes even life threatening withdrawal

Is it the infant that's abstinent? The name of the condition seems contradictory to me since public schooling in the 90's have conditioned me to associate abstinence with not having sex. In which case there shouldn't be an infant.

Reigning_King posted...

at what point does the personhood and right to not suffer unwarranted harm of a baby come into being in your opinion?

We're talking about harm prior to birth, a "baby" has already been born.
A pregnant woman can invoke her right to choose not to give birth and have an abortion.
According to the US constitution an infant becomes a citizen when they are born.
My answer is that they have rights when it doesn't infringe on another person's rights.

---

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

Driving requires that a person is licensed. Substituting pregnancy suggests they need the permission of the state to have children. I think China does something like that. Any step in that direction the laws take is too far for my liking.

Don't be obtuse, you know what point I was trying to make. If you don't then sub out driving for walking around in a public place. Legal normaly but not so when drunk. The reason I didn't use a more benign example like that is that in the case of public intoxication there's not usually a huge chance someone will be badly harmed, unlike drunk driving and drinking heavily while pregnant.

Is it the infant that's abstinent? The name of the condition seems contradictory to me since public schooling in the 90's have conditioned me to associate abstinence with not having sex. In which case there shouldn't be an infant.

You can abstain from anything... in this case it is the baby abstaining from the drugs in their mother's body. It isn't that complicated.

We're talking about harm prior to birth, a "baby" has already been born.
A pregnant woman can invoke her right to choose not to give birth and have an abortion.
According to the US constitution an infant becomes a citizen when they are born.
My answer is that they have rights when it doesn't infringe on another person's rights.

That's a non answer to my first question but I take it that it's pretty much a yes? That you would say that it is fine for a women to deliberately harm her unborn child and give it life long pain and suffering without any sort of justification simply because "it's her body"?

Also the laws on abortion in the US make a clear distinction between when a fetus is "viable" or not. There is a limited amount of time after conception where abortions are permitted across the board and after that point where the fetus is getting closer and closer to being able to survive separate from the mother each state is able to do things differently. Hell, even the "late term" abortions people like to debate about and go on marches and protests for/against are "only" in the second trimester. There are only a very small number of places that will or legally can do third trimester abortions. My point is that clearly as shown by the way the law is constructed and basic common sense the "personhood" of a fetus is a gradual thing and not a binary.

Unless they were being a complete contrarian I don't know of anyone who would say it was fine to abort a healthy fetus, say one day before it was to be born. By the same token I think most reasonable people would say this fetus has some rights although it hasn't technically been born yet.

Reigning_King posted...

If you don't then sub out driving for walking around in a public place. Legal normaly but not so when drunk.

Not many people actually care about that, though Ive been to place where people are just walking around drunk quite often I dont think substituting walking works, either
---

LinkPizza posted...

Not many people actually care about that, though Ive been to place where people are just walking around drunk quite often I dont think substituting walking works, either...

It works well enough as long as you understand what an analogy is.

Reigning_King posted...

It works well enough as long as you understand what an analogy is.

I know what an analogy is. I just dont think its a good one
---

LinkPizza posted...

I know what an analogy is. I just dont think its a good one

Your face isn't a good one.

Reigning_King posted...

Your face isn't a good one.

My face is the best one, thank you very much
---

It's a tricky question. At one level, yeah, it's bad that people hurt their babies like that. Assigning punishment for it, though, effectively means you're criminalizing alcoholism/drug addiction or forcing certain women to get abortions, and neither is a particularly good way to handle things (especially when so many states are actively trying to make abortions harder to get, so that'd just boil down to punishing addicts for getting pregnant). That's especially true where most of the harm done in the case of FASD happens because of drinking in the first trimester, often before many women even know they're pregnant. In any case, then primary behavioural change you'll see from punishments is alcoholic/drug addicted mothers avoiding medical care (possibly including the delivery itself) for fear of being caught with a FASD/NAD baby, which is just plain dangerous for everyone involved.

Instead, solving this problem has to be focused on helping potential mothers avoid it. Rehab and other addiction supports, subsidies to make birth control more available (to people in general, though especially to people with substance abuse problems), better education around the issue... In general, there's a lot of push to punish mothers that are perceived to have done something wrong (criminal charges for FASD, banning abortions to force them to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term...), but most of that comes from a sense of anger over the perceived wrong, rather than because punishment is actually an effective tool for changing behaviour. Making it easier to not make the mistake, however, does improve that outcome.

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

Is it the infant that's abstinent? The name of the condition seems contradictory to me since public schooling in the 90's have conditioned me to associate abstinence with not having sex. In which case there shouldn't be an infant.

Abstinence is simply the state of abstaining from something. Colloquially, it's usually talking about sex, and that's the most common context you're going to hear it in, but you can just as easily abstain from meat, or smooth jazz, or cocaine.

---

I'm against it, because there are so many edge cases and unintended knock-on effects.

Yes, in a perfect world, a woman who is pregnant who willingly drinks or goes out partying with drugs probably should be punished for harming her child. But what if she didn't know she was pregnant at the time? We can say, "OK, this only applies to women who knew they were pregnant at the time," but that just incentivizes addicts to not go to doctors or do pregnancy checks if they suspect they are pregnant so that they can claim plausible deniability.

Are we comfortable acknowledging that a woman who drinks/takes drugs during her pregnancy is now incentivized to terminate the pregnancy - possibly illegally, if it happens late enough in the pregnancy, by forcing a miscarriage - to avoid potential criminal charges? Are we also comfortable acknowledging that this discourages women from admitting they have a problem if they are or recently were pregnant, thereby exposing both mother and child to further risks by isolating them from care?

The best solution here is better education and health care for expectant mothers. If addicts have the resources they need to help beat their addiction, they are less likely to drink/use while pregnant, thus avoiding the problem in the first place.

---

Reigning_King posted...

walking around in a public place. Legal normaly but not so when drunk.

I don't agree with this law. If someone is just walking around not bothering anyone then it shouldn't matter if they are also intoxicated. One aspect of requiring a license to drive was that the individual had to agree to refrain from intoxication while doing it beforehand. Thus the infraction even if there has been no harm. There is no prior agreement to refrain required in regard to either walking around or pregnancy. These are not equivalent analogies.

Reigning_King posted...

It isn't that complicated.

Okay, yeah... the name just wasn't helping make that connection.

Reigning_King posted...

That's a non answer to my first question but I take it that it's pretty much a yes?

You didn't ask a yes or no question. You asked for when. To which I answered when they are granted rights.

Reigning_King posted...

Also the laws on abortion in the US make a clear distinction between when a fetus is "viable" or not.

Think about how this reflects on the substance abuse argument. Would it be fine for the mother to use during the fist 2 trimesters but it becomes illegal only once the fetus is "viable"? You were arguing from the potential harm position earlier. Isn't more harm done earlier in development?

Reigning_King posted...

My point is that clearly as shown by the way the law is constructed and basic common sense the "personhood" of a fetus is a gradual thing and not a binary.

So more harm early is acceptable on the basis that they were less of a person when the harm occurred. This is the same as what I argued. Harm is acceptable because they had not been granted rights which protect them from it.

---

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

I don't agree agree with this law. If someone is just walking around not bothering anyone then it shouldn't matter if they are also intoxicated. One aspect of requiring a license to drive was that the individual had to agree to refrain from intoxication while doing it beforehand. Thus the infraction even if there has been no harm. There is no prior agreement to refrain required in regard to either walking around or pregnancy. These are not equivalent analogies.

You know damn well what I mean, and know damn well your opinion doesn't change the law, or at least I hope you do and I'm not arguing with a child.

You didn't ask a yes or no question. You asked for when. To which I answered when they are granted rights.

Here it is again since you somehow missed it, although based on your stance I have to imagine you would be fine with it.

Reigning_King posted...

If a heavily pregnant woman, far enough along that the baby could hypothetically survive outside the womb, physically assaulted herself or purposely ingested poison in such a way that her baby was born with crippling injuries/illness would you consider that perfectly acceptable since the baby was still inside her body at the time?

Think about how this reflects on the substance abuse argument. Would it be fine for the mother to use during the fist 2 trimesters but it becomes illegal only once the fetus is "viable"? You were arguing from the potential harm position earlier. Isn't more harm done earlier in development?

I don't really care how it reflects on the orginal topic since abortion is only tertiarly related in the first place, and I only mentioned it at all because you brought it up and erroneously made it sound like a woman could get an abortion whenever she pleases during her pregnancy to support your argument. I was simply correcting you, any implication current laws on the subject have on this topic is beside the point, especially since this is for a hypothetical situation.

So more harm early is acceptable on the basis that they were less of a person when the harm occurred. This is the same as what I argued. Harm is acceptable because they had not been granted rights which protect them from it.

Actually you made it pretty clear that you believe that until they are actually born (going as far as to correct my use of the word baby even though it was obvious what I meant) their rights and wellbeing are entirely beneath the whims of their mother who'd body they are still inside even if they are developed enough to survive separate from it. Regardless of your opinions on THAT matter this whole discussion has gone off base because you've continously deflected from and twisted the actual questions itt.

Reigning_King posted...

know damn well your opinion doesn't change the law

If enough people are in agreement the laws can be changed.

Reigning_King posted...

in such a way that her baby was born her baby was born with crippling injuries/illness would you consider that perfectly acceptable since the baby was still inside her body at the time?

No, it would be better that the baby not be born at all.

Reigning_King posted...

erroneously made it sound like a woman could get an abortion whenever she pleases

I don't believe I did.

Reigning_King posted...

Regardless of your opinions on THAT matter this whole discussion has gone off base because you've continously deflected from and twisted the actual questions itt.

Do you not like the way I defend my position, or do you just not like my position? I don't think it is regardless of my opinions on THAT matter. I think THAT matter is central to the discussion.

---

Apropos to the topic at hand: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/06/24/pregnant-woman-charged-prescription/

tl;dr - a woman in Arkansas is being charged with a felony because her newborn tested positive for opioids. The reason? She had a prescription for painkillers to treat her chronic pain. She's being charged for prescription fraud even though:
a) She filled the prescription legally
b) She was not asked by her doctor if she was pregnant when he gave her the prescription

The prosecutor is suggesting that she intentionally withheld her pregnancy from her doctor in order to get the prescription, but it was a prescription she's had since before she became pregnant.

This is why automatically charging someone whose child has FAS/NAS is not necessarily a good idea.

---