Criminalising Pregnant Mothers who Drink
- Thread starter FabricLiveBaby!
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wobbly
eatmorecheese
He's fallen out of the car again
Vintage Paw
dead stare and computer glare
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
You're done!
coley
Well-Known Member
Might I ask why you haven't called the police on her yet then?
Waiting until there's money in it
eatmorecheese
He's fallen out of the car again
Wow @ thread. Very good for the first 8 or 9 pages...
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wobbly
A tedious position.
(I believe that's a line)
added. and i've got a line there.
you know, i might have been a little harsh on FridgeMagnet there. as more people wade through the mire, i might get my house
coley
Well-Known Member
Bullshit
Vintage Paw
dead stare and computer glare
Well, anyway, back on track:
I find myself silently applauding all of Louis MacNiece's posts on this thread. He makes the perfectly simple, obvious and absolutely correct point that you don't have to take away one person's rights in order to grant someone else theirs. It is possible to view both mother and daughter as being in need of care and support, as both being victims of a system that sets certain people up to fail, that commits violence on people in myriad ways.
Criminalising the mother is doing what AW does on threads involving women: it deflects attention from the structural and institutional causes of inequalities and ills and shifts it squarely into the laps of some of the victims of that structural and institutional violence. It changes the terms of the debate, so we stop looking at drilling down to what causes a society where people don't get the help they need when they become addicted, and indeed why they may become addicted in the first place - or whatever else we might be talking about - and makes us look instead to our neighbour who has the nerve to react to that system in a way that we have been told is unacceptable.
Now that's 'nasty'.
I find myself silently applauding all of Louis MacNiece's posts on this thread. He makes the perfectly simple, obvious and absolutely correct point that you don't have to take away one person's rights in order to grant someone else theirs. It is possible to view both mother and daughter as being in need of care and support, as both being victims of a system that sets certain people up to fail, that commits violence on people in myriad ways.
Criminalising the mother is doing what AW does on threads involving women: it deflects attention from the structural and institutional causes of inequalities and ills and shifts it squarely into the laps of some of the victims of that structural and institutional violence. It changes the terms of the debate, so we stop looking at drilling down to what causes a society where people don't get the help they need when they become addicted, and indeed why they may become addicted in the first place - or whatever else we might be talking about - and makes us look instead to our neighbour who has the nerve to react to that system in a way that we have been told is unacceptable.
Now that's 'nasty'.
equationgirl
Respect my existence or expect my resistance
What I find pertinent in this case is that for this woman's first pregnancy she did not drink heavily, yet by the time of her second pregnancy she was. Clearly something happened in her life that had such a profound effect on her that the end result was an addiction. She didn't just wake up one day and deliberately decide to drink heavily.
Why was the course of action legal rather than offering her the support she and her family were obviously crying out for?
Why was the course of action legal rather than offering her the support she and her family were obviously crying out for?
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wobbly
i think part of what is needed is to seperate out the issues here.
firstly, yes, there is a child who needs care. but this case is not about whether care should be provided for that child. it is about who pays for that care. does anyone really believe that the child won't be cared for, or that there will be significant differences in the care they receive dependent on the outcome of that case?
if you want to look at why this case is necessary, then consider that it is absolutely bloody rediculous that one organisation is using taxpayer funds to take another organisation to court, who are using taxpayer funds to try to aviod paying taxpayer funds to another taxpayer funded organisation. fuck, i normally loathe the 'taxpayer' card, but this lot of shites are wasting money bickering over whose budget this child's care comes out of, when they are both funded from the same source.
Secondly. there's a lot of talk about who is and isn't vulnerable. of course a developing foetus is vulnerable. but the other person we're discussing looks a lot like someone who wasn't able to consider the needs of a foetus, because they were having trouble caring for their own needs. have a look at the descriptions given of the lass concerned. I'd not have thought that most young people who become alcoholics before they are legally allowed to drink are doing so because their life is a parade of wonderfullness. and pregnancy isn't a magic cure that makes every fucked up thing in someone's life go away. but if the recent grooming cases have shown us anything, they show how easy it can be for vulnerable teenage girls to be written off by the people who are supposed to be listening to them.
lastly, you cannot give rights to a foetus without restricting the rights of the woman carring it. no one is saying that seeing babies born with drug/alcohol damage is ok. but what happens when you dictate a woman's behavior because she is pregnant are a lot worse. you see women denied the right to make their own decisions on medical care. imprisioned for trying to get support. and proven examples where decisions are being taken on a moralistic rather than medical basis, punishing women in a way that worsens the outcome for the foetus. and there will be a disproportionate affect of any attempt to restrict women's rights put upon minorities and vulnerable women. i'm also quite concerned about how restrictions on women's behavior could be used by abusers. retaining the absolute right for women to do as they wish is by a long way the lesser of two evils.
firstly, yes, there is a child who needs care. but this case is not about whether care should be provided for that child. it is about who pays for that care. does anyone really believe that the child won't be cared for, or that there will be significant differences in the care they receive dependent on the outcome of that case?
if you want to look at why this case is necessary, then consider that it is absolutely bloody rediculous that one organisation is using taxpayer funds to take another organisation to court, who are using taxpayer funds to try to aviod paying taxpayer funds to another taxpayer funded organisation. fuck, i normally loathe the 'taxpayer' card, but this lot of shites are wasting money bickering over whose budget this child's care comes out of, when they are both funded from the same source.
Secondly. there's a lot of talk about who is and isn't vulnerable. of course a developing foetus is vulnerable. but the other person we're discussing looks a lot like someone who wasn't able to consider the needs of a foetus, because they were having trouble caring for their own needs. have a look at the descriptions given of the lass concerned. I'd not have thought that most young people who become alcoholics before they are legally allowed to drink are doing so because their life is a parade of wonderfullness. and pregnancy isn't a magic cure that makes every fucked up thing in someone's life go away. but if the recent grooming cases have shown us anything, they show how easy it can be for vulnerable teenage girls to be written off by the people who are supposed to be listening to them.
lastly, you cannot give rights to a foetus without restricting the rights of the woman carring it. no one is saying that seeing babies born with drug/alcohol damage is ok. but what happens when you dictate a woman's behavior because she is pregnant are a lot worse. you see women denied the right to make their own decisions on medical care. imprisioned for trying to get support. and proven examples where decisions are being taken on a moralistic rather than medical basis, punishing women in a way that worsens the outcome for the foetus. and there will be a disproportionate affect of any attempt to restrict women's rights put upon minorities and vulnerable women. i'm also quite concerned about how restrictions on women's behavior could be used by abusers. retaining the absolute right for women to do as they wish is by a long way the lesser of two evils.
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wobbly
i think she was drinking before the first pregnancy.
purves grundy
ambient clown remix
Heard a really interesting philosophically inflected discussion on reproductive risk a while back. Link below, well worth a listen.
http://humstatic.uchicago.edu/philosophy/elucidations/Kukla_ReproductiveRisk.mp3
http://humstatic.uchicago.edu/philosophy/elucidations/Kukla_ReproductiveRisk.mp3
goldenecitrone
post tenebras lux
If society really cared about women having the perfect environment for being pregnant and giving birth to a 'perfect' child, it would do something about the conditions that women experience pregnancy in. If society really cared and did something about it, instead of standing by the sidelines being a judgemental cunt.
Vintage Paw
dead stare and computer glare
I hope it was clear in the thing I wrote that I wasn't suggesting this. I specifically said mother and daughter, meaning now the child is, indeed, a person. I agree with you that while the foetus is a foetus it is the woman carrying it who has all the rights, full stop. And once that child is born, they both have rights, and both should be cared for.
Vintage Paw
dead stare and computer glare
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wobbly
oh gods yes. that wasn't aimed at you so much as what you said triggered off the need to write lots.
red & green
Well-Known Member
This local authority is trying to exploit the CICA/scheme .
The woman hasn't been charged with an offence - the scheme allows for payments to victims of crime where no perpetrator has been identified but a crime has taken place. This is what the LA is exploiting.
They have a QC .
Apart from the obvious it really irritates me that public money that could go into support of this child is going into paying for a hopeless case.
So a case to enable a LA to have access to CICA funds is going to turn on reproductive rights of women - the general case is victim blaming - no doubt at all that the woman concerned is / was a vulnerable person .
But back in the day when money was scarce due to cuts - public workers would take industrial action to preserve services that protect vulnerable people.
These days there appears to be a culture of victim blaming - I'm afraid I'm lost in a world I don't understand , where vulnerable people are intimidated and bullied personally and through the courts ...
The woman hasn't been charged with an offence - the scheme allows for payments to victims of crime where no perpetrator has been identified but a crime has taken place. This is what the LA is exploiting.
They have a QC .
Apart from the obvious it really irritates me that public money that could go into support of this child is going into paying for a hopeless case.
So a case to enable a LA to have access to CICA funds is going to turn on reproductive rights of women - the general case is victim blaming - no doubt at all that the woman concerned is / was a vulnerable person .
But back in the day when money was scarce due to cuts - public workers would take industrial action to preserve services that protect vulnerable people.
These days there appears to be a culture of victim blaming - I'm afraid I'm lost in a world I don't understand , where vulnerable people are intimidated and bullied personally and through the courts ...
newbie
undisambiguated
I glanced last night and erm, well y'all were having so much fun...
this morning I woke thinking, nope, it's all been said, and I don't have the time to spend all day responding to loads of posters and loads of points. And anyway I'm obviously losing
Then I read toggles substantial post above and now I'm going to try to clarify why I think she's on the wrong side of history on this one.
yes and no. This is a test case, it's about one child representative of children in 80 other cases, but also of the 3,000 or so children each year who have been born already affected by alcohol. Surely our primary concern should be preventing it happening in future. This case is about whether or not there is a specific legal framework for that.
The children will be cared for, within the bounds of the systems available. The test case child is in foster care. I'm guessing, since the science is relatively new, that there's not a lot in the way of whole life studies, to show whether any or all of the children involved will require continuing care once they become adults, whether they'll be disproportionately involved with eg healthcare, addiction or criminality or whether they'll lead perfectly normal lives. Obviously we all hope for the best, but the test case child has suffered 'developmental problems' which doesn't bode well for her.
So for society as a whole, as well as for the individuals born with this, there is a real problem, and simply saying that the child will be cared for isn't good enough. Every step needs to be taken to prevent this happening in future.
It's clear that harm is being caused through the predictable actions of an individual.
That individual may be addicted, they may have mental health issues or they may simply be acting irresponsibly, but either way, there are virtually no other circumstances where society would simply shrug and says 'well, both the person who caused the harm and the victim will be cared for'. Any there are are very rare and very tragic.
In other circumstances where predictable harm will be caused to others, steps are taken, by eg the legal system and/or mental health professionals, to prevent harm occurring. Because that's obviously sensible.
In general terms unless they have lost the capacity to make responsible decisions, addicts are held responsible, in law, for their own behaviour and addiction is not, in itself, a mitigating factor, eg in offences against the person, although 'determination, and/or demonstration of steps taken to address addiction' may be.
In cases where there is a clear inability to act responsibly because of mental health difficulties attempts at prevention may include medication or secure hospitals as well as all sorts of less drastic interventions. In severe cases the intervention is enforced, which means the rights of the person predicted to cause harm are restricted. They are, in cases where the prediction is that harm to someone else is almost certain, locked up, losing their right to freedom. This can only be done because laws are in place to allow it, with checks and balances and judicial oversight. Essentially their behaviour has been 'criminalised' although it's not really considered in the same light as other criminal law because it's there for prevention and protection rather than punishment.
Society allows this, and does not view it as a widespread attack on rights, because it is seen to prefer the right to not be a victim over the power to act regardless of consequences.
Yet in this case progressive thought appears to accept that harm will be caused but that's ok because:
a) the victim will be cared for;
b) the rights of the person predicted to cause the harm override all rights the victim has to a healthy life;
c) the rights of women in general are compromised if steps are taken to prevent a specific individual causing specific harm in these specific circumstances.
In my head I'm hearing Jenni Murray interviewing the test case child on Womans Hour in 20 years time, when she can talk for herself and express her horror at being born with no prior right to protection whatsoever. She will look at b) and c) and say a) simply wasn't an adequate response. I imagine her saying something along the lines of:
it was her right to expect every possible step to be taken to prevent the harm occurring;
that her right to a full and unharmed life overrides the right of person who did her harm to behave in predictably harmful ways unfettered by the law or by mental health professionals;
that her right to a full and unharmed life obviously has to be balanced against wider collective rights of women instead of being discounted completely.
I hope that by the time that interview is broadcast she will be talking about a historic position subsequently overturned.
If, as I think was being suggested above, addiction makes the expectant mother incapable of acting responsibly then the victim has a right to expect the state to act on her behalf, to protect her before she is born. It's that simple. She should not be born with predictable and preventable 'developmental difficulties'. What intervention is possible is a matter for experts, there's no point in trying to second guess it. But it can only be done lawfully, which means 'criminalising' the harmful behaviour. It's up to society at large to set and monitor the ethical and legal issues involved, just as with any area where individual rights are compromised for the protection of someone else, whether mental health related issues are involved ot not.
ok I was going to follow the structure of toggles post but I've wandered off and this is what I've written. I've not addressed the practicalities because they're just that and they follow on from rights rather than determining them. Nor have I dwelt on the details of the arguments presented in court because they're the thoughts of someone else, not me.
I hope no-one will accuse me of being anti-abortion or of misogyny. The former is certainly not the case and the latter has no part of my conscious thinking. That anti-abortionists may use the rights of the sort I've been discussing is obvious, but no-one ever said that the balancing of rights is simple. They can be argued against. The principle that rights may start at conception but cannot be realised or exercised until after live birth seems to me to be both reasonable and clear. A foetus has no rights in and of itself, nor any responsibilities or duties, it cannot sue or be sued, it cannot be prosecuted or hold property, it cannot agree or disagree with anything. But a person (ie someone who has been born) with every right, responsibility and duty that implies has the right to protection from conception onwards. And that right overrides the right of someone else to do them harm, even their mother.
To pretend that people can be harmed before birth but have no rights at that point is just plain wrong, in my opinion.
I may or may not have the time (or inclination) to come back on the inevitable posts telling me just how foolish I am.
this morning I woke thinking, nope, it's all been said, and I don't have the time to spend all day responding to loads of posters and loads of points. And anyway I'm obviously losing
Then I read toggles substantial post above and now I'm going to try to clarify why I think she's on the wrong side of history on this one.
yes and no. This is a test case, it's about one child representative of children in 80 other cases, but also of the 3,000 or so children each year who have been born already affected by alcohol. Surely our primary concern should be preventing it happening in future. This case is about whether or not there is a specific legal framework for that.
The children will be cared for, within the bounds of the systems available. The test case child is in foster care. I'm guessing, since the science is relatively new, that there's not a lot in the way of whole life studies, to show whether any or all of the children involved will require continuing care once they become adults, whether they'll be disproportionately involved with eg healthcare, addiction or criminality or whether they'll lead perfectly normal lives. Obviously we all hope for the best, but the test case child has suffered 'developmental problems' which doesn't bode well for her.
So for society as a whole, as well as for the individuals born with this, there is a real problem, and simply saying that the child will be cared for isn't good enough. Every step needs to be taken to prevent this happening in future.
It's clear that harm is being caused through the predictable actions of an individual.
That individual may be addicted, they may have mental health issues or they may simply be acting irresponsibly, but either way, there are virtually no other circumstances where society would simply shrug and says 'well, both the person who caused the harm and the victim will be cared for'. Any there are are very rare and very tragic.
In other circumstances where predictable harm will be caused to others, steps are taken, by eg the legal system and/or mental health professionals, to prevent harm occurring. Because that's obviously sensible.
In general terms unless they have lost the capacity to make responsible decisions, addicts are held responsible, in law, for their own behaviour and addiction is not, in itself, a mitigating factor, eg in offences against the person, although 'determination, and/or demonstration of steps taken to address addiction' may be.
In cases where there is a clear inability to act responsibly because of mental health difficulties attempts at prevention may include medication or secure hospitals as well as all sorts of less drastic interventions. In severe cases the intervention is enforced, which means the rights of the person predicted to cause harm are restricted. They are, in cases where the prediction is that harm to someone else is almost certain, locked up, losing their right to freedom. This can only be done because laws are in place to allow it, with checks and balances and judicial oversight. Essentially their behaviour has been 'criminalised' although it's not really considered in the same light as other criminal law because it's there for prevention and protection rather than punishment.
Society allows this, and does not view it as a widespread attack on rights, because it is seen to prefer the right to not be a victim over the power to act regardless of consequences.
Yet in this case progressive thought appears to accept that harm will be caused but that's ok because:
a) the victim will be cared for;
b) the rights of the person predicted to cause the harm override all rights the victim has to a healthy life;
c) the rights of women in general are compromised if steps are taken to prevent a specific individual causing specific harm in these specific circumstances.
In my head I'm hearing Jenni Murray interviewing the test case child on Womans Hour in 20 years time, when she can talk for herself and express her horror at being born with no prior right to protection whatsoever. She will look at b) and c) and say a) simply wasn't an adequate response. I imagine her saying something along the lines of:
it was her right to expect every possible step to be taken to prevent the harm occurring;
that her right to a full and unharmed life overrides the right of person who did her harm to behave in predictably harmful ways unfettered by the law or by mental health professionals;
that her right to a full and unharmed life obviously has to be balanced against wider collective rights of women instead of being discounted completely.
I hope that by the time that interview is broadcast she will be talking about a historic position subsequently overturned.
If, as I think was being suggested above, addiction makes the expectant mother incapable of acting responsibly then the victim has a right to expect the state to act on her behalf, to protect her before she is born. It's that simple. She should not be born with predictable and preventable 'developmental difficulties'. What intervention is possible is a matter for experts, there's no point in trying to second guess it. But it can only be done lawfully, which means 'criminalising' the harmful behaviour. It's up to society at large to set and monitor the ethical and legal issues involved, just as with any area where individual rights are compromised for the protection of someone else, whether mental health related issues are involved ot not.
ok I was going to follow the structure of toggles post but I've wandered off and this is what I've written. I've not addressed the practicalities because they're just that and they follow on from rights rather than determining them. Nor have I dwelt on the details of the arguments presented in court because they're the thoughts of someone else, not me.
I hope no-one will accuse me of being anti-abortion or of misogyny. The former is certainly not the case and the latter has no part of my conscious thinking. That anti-abortionists may use the rights of the sort I've been discussing is obvious, but no-one ever said that the balancing of rights is simple. They can be argued against. The principle that rights may start at conception but cannot be realised or exercised until after live birth seems to me to be both reasonable and clear. A foetus has no rights in and of itself, nor any responsibilities or duties, it cannot sue or be sued, it cannot be prosecuted or hold property, it cannot agree or disagree with anything. But a person (ie someone who has been born) with every right, responsibility and duty that implies has the right to protection from conception onwards. And that right overrides the right of someone else to do them harm, even their mother.
To pretend that people can be harmed before birth but have no rights at that point is just plain wrong, in my opinion.
I may or may not have the time (or inclination) to come back on the inevitable posts telling me just how foolish I am.
red & green
Well-Known Member
Problem is Newbie that services to protect the vulnerable be it an addicted mother or a child with fetal alcohol syndrome are disappearing fast and being replaced with a culture of victim blaming
maomao
普費斯
That's just not true, as Blagsta outlined above the structures are already in place for social services to intervene in cases like this.
This isn't a case about protecting a child though, it's about a local authority trying to access funding and it has massive implications for women's rights over their own bodies. What benefit do you think the child in this case will gain if the prosecution is successful?
newbie
undisambiguated
Rights must be universal, mustn't they? However this is a specific issue about a specific medical condition and I don't personally want to discuss other matters.
maomao
普費斯
Only some cheeses (soft and blue-veined cheeses). Pizza is fine thank fuck.
Thora
Differently Ethical
OK, so you do want to criminalise women carrying Tay Sachs genes or who take lithium for example, women with poorly controlled diabetes, women who choose not to screen for/terminate pregnancies with Down's Syndrome, women whose birth choices contradict medical advice, and the cheese-eaters - but you don't want to discuss it because it will make you look foolish?
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Rights are tricky things. The rights of one person often come into conflict with the rights of another. Universal, certainly. Absolute, no. Life is more complicated than that.
Thinking about this in terms of rights is a dead-end though, imo. It's a legalese way of avoiding the real issue - which is the wellbeing of everyone involved, including the mother.
But you're still stuck in this false dichotomy of 'either this must be criminalised or we wash our hands of any responsibility'. I do wish you'd take on board what people have been saying to you about that.
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