Did I not say this was likely to be the next step?

[Jules]

Breeze, making it a law wont change anything aside from holding people accountable.

The problem is there is no way this can be fairly done and yes if passed it will go to the extreme and be a bad situation to those undeserving.

All I have ever meant was that if there was a way to hold accountable and responsible women who are intentionally practicing behaviors that result in miscarriages to be held liable for what they do I dont think that is so horrible an idea.

Making something into a law changes everything. It will just go on and an from there.

Sadly, if a pregnant woman decides to drink, do drugs and what not- she has the right to choose to do so, it is her body. Of course, she's violating other laws, but concerning the pregnancy, it is her body. If we allow just one law to pass that takes away a woman's right and control over her body, then pregnancies will be regulated by the government before you know it.

THIS is not the way to educate.

 

[KenyiGirl]

Sadly, if a pregnant woman decides to drink, do drugs and what not- she has the right to choose to do so, it is her body. Of course, she's violating other laws, but concerning the pregnancy, it is her body. If we allow just one law to pass that takes away a woman's right and control over her body, then pregnancies will be regulated by the government before you know it.

To be clear, I don't think the government should be regulating pregnancies or miscarriages. That's a rediculous idea.

But to say that if a pregnant woman wants to drink and do drugs then she has a right to, is terrible. If a person wants to screw up their body, go for it, because a person truly does have the right to do whatever they want to their own body. But a pregnant woman is not just screwing herself up, but also her kid. Her kid could be born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, or be mentally disabled. That is heartbreaking. Is ther a higher form of selfishness than a mother who willfully destroys her child's future like that? Those children will have a life full of difficulty due to their mothers' willful actions. That IS neglect and/or abuse.

I don't think more government regulation/control/rules is the answer. I don't know what the answer is. We definitely should focus less on instituting more laws and focus more on enforcing the ones we have.

Just, ugh. I hate the world sometimes.

 

[Jules]

To be clear, I don't think the government should be regulating pregnancies or miscarriages. That's a rediculous idea.

But to say that if a pregnant woman wants to drink and do drugs then she has a right to, is terrible. If a person wants to screw up their body, go for it, because a person truly does have the right to do whatever they want to their own body. But a pregnant woman is not just screwing herself up, but also her kid. Her kid could be born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, or be mentally disabled. That is heartbreaking. Is ther a higher form of selfishness than a mother who willfully destroys her child's future like that? Those children will have a life full of difficulty due to their mothers' willful actions. That IS neglect and/or abuse.

I don't think more government regulation/control/rules is the answer. I don't know what the answer is. We definitely should focus less on instituting more laws and focus more on enforcing the ones we have.

Just, ugh. I hate the world sometimes.

Yes, it is terrible, I never said it wasn't. But it IS her body and we don't have the right to tell her what she should do.

Should she be encouraged to be healthy? Yes. Do I wish we could properly care and give these women perspective? Yes, yes, yes.

But it is not the government's right to dictate her what to do if she's not doing the right thing on her own.

 

[KenyiGirl]

But it IS her body and we don't have the right to tell her what she should do.

Agreed, a person's body is their own and they should be allowed do whatever they want with it. But her child is a different person than her. Is it her right to cause her child to be born addicted to hard drugs? Have facial abnormalities? Have life-long struggles with growing, learning, and relating to others? The law says it is.

Should she be encouraged to be healthy? Yes. Do I wish we could properly care and give these women perspective? Yes, yes, yes.

But it is not the government's right to dictate her what to do if she's not doing the right thing on her own.

I don't think the government could dictate what every person should do even if they tried. I mean, babies born addicted to hard drugs should never happen since hard drugs are illegal, right????

I think you've hit on it, how do we encourage people to be more healthy, how do we give people perspective? How do you make a person want to care about another person, or at least acknowledge how their actions are affecting others? Is that even possible?

 

[Bunny82]

Yes more accurately you are right Jules it would change everything and while it is not the best way to educate the alternative of a pregnant woman should be able to drink/take drugs/and so forth because it is her body seems just as poor way of teaching to me.
I get the whole its a woman body speech and she should be able to treat/use it as she wishes but there has to be a line drawn somewhere. Or more accurately I would like to see a line drawn somewhere but feasibly this is not possible. Not without punishing the innocent and I don't see a way for this to pass where it could be regulated in such a way that only those who purposely caused themselves to be miscarry would be trialed.

So the world will continue on as it is.

There will be woman who tragically miscarry through no fault or desire of thier own and they will have my sympathy and support.

And then there will be those woman who murder their unborn babies because its their bodies and they don't give a **** and they will continue their lives without batting an eyelash or suffering any consequences.

 

[Lilavati]

The problem is not education. By and large, people, even really ignorant people, know they are not supposed to smoke/drink/do hard drugs while pregnant. Sure, some prenatal care and education would be great, and would lead to healthier babies. But by and large the people who are doing these things are either too irresponsible or too addicted to whatever it is to stop. Its the same reason why passing a law wouldn't help . . . the sort of people who keep smoking, or drink heavily, or do hard drugs while pregnant are the same people who are in essence undeterrable . . . you can punish them, but you won't be able to use to fear of punishment to keep them from doing it in the first place. Punishing them may feel good . . . but it won't help anyone: not them, not the kid, not even society, because it won't deter others.

And the idea of pregnancy police, reporting women who do things they shouldn't during pregancy, is down right scary. . . so she was seen smoking. Maybe she only had one cigarette because she had a fight with her husband and couldn't fight the urge. Should she? No. Is it likely to harm the baby? No. Is it understandable? Sure. Moments of weakness happen. And there's actually debate about whether a drink or two a week, especially in the later stages of pregnancy, does any harm. I guess my point is . .when do you decide a woman is actually harming her unborn child. As Mike (my fiance) pointed out, what if she is eating tuna? Tuna has lots of good omega threes . . . and bad mercury.

Keep in mind, too, that some of these things are overblown. This is not to excuse people who smoke like chimneys, drink like fish, or use crack while pregnant, but remember the "crack babies?" Turns out, now that they are mostly grown, that statistically they are not significantly different from their peers who were not born addicted to crack. At the time, people viewed those babies mothers as the next thing to murderers . . . turns out, the kids are mostly ok. This is not to minimize their incredible irresponsibility, or the suffering those babies experienced in their first days of life . . . just to point out that what people may think is the "worst thing" at the time, or incredibly harmful, may turn out not to be as big of a deal as its made out to be . . . they did not grow up to be severely impaired or permanently addicted, or anything else in the parade of horrors we were told to expect.

Honestly, sometimes you just have to spread your hands, say "some people suck," and move on. We can't right all the wrongs in the world, and trying will only create more wrongs.

 

[GlassOnion]

What an interesting thread I missed out on...

Agreed, a person's body is their own and they should be allowed do whatever they want with it. But her child is a different person than her. Is it her right to cause her child to be born addicted to hard drugs? Have facial abnormalities? Have life-long struggles with growing, learning, and relating to others? The law says it is.

Yah but if you pass a law saying you can't do X while pregnant you're one step closer to giving them complete control over the woman's body and making asinine laws, such as proposed in the OP's article, possible.

It's called precedent and works for things other than court cases.

It also takes abortion off the table as an option. We know you don't want to take it to extremes, but, again as evidenced by the article, some people do.

So it comes down to this: people just have to have personal responsibility. We can't legislate out someone's entire life, nor should we.

 

[Dekka]

And if mother's get held accountable at that level, what about men? What if you did something that compromised the quality of your sperm, or worked with a hazardous mutagen. Should you then be held accountable if that sperm makes a baby?

 

[darkchild16]

Yes more accurately you are right Jules it would change everything and while it is not the best way to educate the alternative of a pregnant woman should be able to drink/take drugs/and so forth because it is her body seems just as poor way of teaching to me.
I get the whole its a woman body speech and she should be able to treat/use it as she wishes but there has to be a line drawn somewhere. Or more accurately I would like to see a line drawn somewhere but feasibly this is not possible. Not without punishing the innocent and I don't see a way for this to pass where it could be regulated in such a way that only those who purposely caused themselves to be miscarry would be trialed.

So the world will continue on as it is.

There will be woman who tragically miscarry through no fault or desire of thier own and they will have my sympathy and support.

And then there will be those woman who murder their unborn babies because its their bodies and they don't give a **** and they will continue their lives without batting an eyelash or suffering any consequences.

Yes its sad and yes it hurts but that still doesnt give us the right. I know people personally that dont want their kids and are having them or have kids and treat them that way and Jeremy and I still would like to have one more. Yet we cant have anymore because it can kill me. So yes seeing people go around and getting pregnant at a drop of a hat and not caring bugs me too but its not my place to govern it.

 

[DogKisses]

Dekka, clearly we need to make tighty whiteys illegal.

Since they could affect sperm count. While we are at it, lets just ban all underwear.

 

[GlassOnion]

Since they could affect sperm count. While we are at it, lets just ban all underwear.

Looks like I'm ahead of the game!

 

[Renee750il]

There's a joke in there somewhere re "Texas longhorn."

 

[JennSLK]

So what would they do if Breeze got preg, while on birth control, and tyring not to get preg. Breeze then had a abortion because a baby would 100% kill her. Would she be charged with murder or would it be considered self defence??

(n) Self defense is the action by which a person protects himself from any bodily harm arising out of an encounters or attacks from other person either by protecting him or by blocking the opponents advancement by a counter attack. Self defense is not a crime so accused may be tempted to show their action as self defense to escape punishment

Deadly Force may be used to fend off an attacker who is using deadly force but may not be used to repel an attacker who is not using deadly force.

A abortion would be considered Deadly force since the fetus would be killing her. The only way to stop her death would be to kill the fetus, who cant survive without the mother anyways and its not possible for breeze to carry to any survivable term. What then????

 

[darkchild16]

Knowing the government they would pull something like: you dont know if it would kill her until it does.

 

[Lilavati]

Knowing the government they would pull something like: you dont know if it would kill her until it does.

Some bureaucrat would take that position, anyway. And certainly the sort of lunatics that propose this sort of law would.

 

[smkie]

I can't help but feel like things this dumb are thrown out there to distract us from other things. Seriously can anyone be THAT stupid?

 

[Chewbecca]

There will be woman who tragically miscarry through no fault or desire of thier own and they will have my sympathy and support.

And then there will be those woman who murder their unborn babies because its their bodies and they don't give a **** and they will continue their lives without batting an eyelash or suffering any consequences.

And there will continue to be women who have abortions for varying reasons who MORE THAN bat an eyelash and suffer the consequences DAILY for the decision they had to make.

There may be some that don't care about aborting an unborn child/fetus/cells and tissue (depends on how the individual views the unborn MATTER in her own uterus), but do NOT paint abortion so black and white.
It's NOT black and white.

Your statement makes it appear that you think all who have abortions are heartless, conscienceless murderers who should be serial killers without the ability to FEEL any emotion.

MY views on abortion or whether or not I'M pro-choice or pro-life are just that. MY views. And as my views on religion, they'll remain MY personal, and very private views. Not to be dictated by you or anyone else who believes or doesn't believe in abortion. And because of this, I surely am not going to go around claiming women who have abortions don't bat an eyelash or suffer the consequences.

And until you walk in the shoes, or live in the heart and head of someone who HAS had an abortion, perhaps you shouldn't be making statements like that or judging. But that's just it with you and folks with your views: You all have taken your stance, formed your beliefs, and speak so openly and ignorantly about those who HAVE experienced what you have not. As if you have a moral right to do so.

 

[KenyiGirl]

There will be woman who tragically miscarry through no fault or desire of thier own and they will have my sympathy and support.

And then there will be those woman who murder their unborn babies because its their bodies and they don't give a **** and they will continue their lives without batting an eyelash or suffering any consequences.

And there will continue to be women who have abortions for varying reasons who MORE THAN bat an eyelash and suffer the consequences DAILY for the decision they had to make.

You're both right. There are all types of women, all types of reasons they make the choices they do, and all types of consequences and emotional responses to those choices, which includes having none at all.

do NOT paint abortion so black and white.
It's NOT black and white.

For some people it is black and white. To say "It's a woman's body, she can do whatever the hell she wants to it and to the baby growing in it, because it's HER body, consequences be damned!" seems to me to be just as black and white as "You're going to hell if you have an abortion for ANY reason WHATSOEVER!"

And until you walk in the shoes, or live in the heart and head of someone who HAS had an abortion, perhaps you shouldn't be making statements like that or judging. But that's just it with you and folks with your views: You all have taken your stance, formed your beliefs, and speak so openly and ignorantly about those who HAVE experienced what you have not. As if you have a moral right to do so.

Hm, I'm sensing a slippery slope. So until you walk in the shoes of someone, you can't make statements about their choices? That doesn't sit right with me, one should get to have an objective opinion about something without going through it themselves. Sometimes the objective view is the one that should carry the most weight (not in all cases, but think marriage counselors). One thing I think we can all agree on, we all have the right to our own beliefs and views.

 

[Bunny82]

And there will continue to be women who have abortions for varying reasons who MORE THAN bat an eyelash and suffer the consequences DAILY for the decision they had to make.

And that may be very true in the case of the woman who decided to have an abortion procedure for whatever reason or the woman who spontaneously aborted (miscarried) and is constantly questioning what she could have done differently but I am not talking of those woman. I am talking about women who purposely do things with the intention of harming the child growing inside her because she does not care is completely different.

There may be some that don't care about aborting an unborn child/fetus/cells and tissue (depends on how the individual views the unborn MATTER in her own uterus), but do NOT paint abortion so black and white.
It's NOT black and white.

Actually for some individual it is very black and white. Depends on the party. Ive known people who had abortions and it was an emotional and painful journey. I know others with the mindset of "I don't want kids but I dont want to use contraceptives so if I get knocked I'll just drink myself into a miscarriage."

Your statement makes it appear that you think all who have abortions are heartless, conscienceless murderers who should be serial killers without the ability to FEEL any emotion

Actually I never offered my stance on anyone who had an abortion procedure. I only offered my stance on woman who purposely are causing themselves to miscarry with the excuse of 'its my body'.

MY views on abortion or whether or not I'M pro-choice or pro-life are just that. MY views. And as my views on religion, they'll remain MY personal, and very private views. Not to be dictated by you or anyone else who believes or doesn't believe in abortion. And because of this, I surely am not going to go around claiming women who have abortions don't bat an eyelash or suffer the consequences.

Actually by your statements your making your views quite clear that anyone who may be pro-life is wrong under the guise of neutrality and you are also making it quite clear that if anyone has a different stance than you on the issue they are dead wrong.

And until you walk in the shoes, or live in the heart and head of someone who HAS had an abortion, perhaps you shouldn't be making statements like that or judging. But that's just it with you and folks with your views: You all have taken your stance, formed your beliefs, and speak so openly and ignorantly about those who HAVE experienced what you have not. As if you have a moral right to do so.

So unless it something that I have directly experienced I am not allowed to have opinions on it. Are you serious? So because I never beat my son I am not allowed to say that child abuse is wrong?

Because I have never abused an animal I am not allowed to say that is wrong?

Because I have never purposely given myself alcohol poisoining with the sole intention of trying to make myself miscarry I am not allowed to say that is wrong?

I do hope that you practice what you preach and in the future you do not offer your opinions on any topic unless it is something that you have personally lived through an experienced.

 

[release the hounds]

be thankful you made decisions and choices that didn't put in that situation and give people the benefit of the doubt that they are making decisions based on their best interest. If they aren't? well it really isn't affecting you, so get over it. and if you find yourself in a similiar situation, then you do what you think is right