Smoking while Pregnant

[Emu]

I read an interesting op/ed piece in my local paper today (which I'm having trouble finding online ) about the move to make it a punishable offense for mothers to smoke while pregnant. This is directly relevent to Kev's thread about the helmet laws.

This creates a problem in the abortion debate -- it's hypocritical to support a mother's right to smoke while pregnant and at the same time believe that a fetus is a human being with the right to life. It's also hypocritical to try to enforce a law that prohibits mothers from smoking while saying it should be legal to abort a fetus halfway through its term. Will this issue turn into another battle for the abortion debaters?

[Immortal Goat]

This is a complicated issue, to be sure, and I'm all for *restricted* abortions, but smoking while pregnant disgusts me. Here's my rationale:

Abortion, in my opinion, shouldn't be had by just anyone at any time. I think it's only ok within the first trimester, unless it is threatening to the mother's life to continue the pregnancy. However, a mother that isn't getting an abortion, but smokes, obviously wants that child to live. IF that child survives the mother's stupidity, there are many health problems that will surface within the child's life. The child will suffer throughout it's life because of their mother's inability to control herself.

Sure, you could make the same argument about abortion, but it would be stupid to. An abortion terminates life before the ability to feel is even present. Smokine while pregnant causes birth defects, and in some extreme cases, can even cause infantile addiction. Smoking while pregnant is worse than abortion, because it causes lifelong suffering, whereas abortion prevents life completely. I, for one, would rather be dead than have been born addicted to ciggarettes and later getting lung cancer all because my mom couldn't control herself.

[Preechr]

Next Stop: Sterilization of Ugly People and those that belong to the political party not in power at the moment.

[Immortal Goat]

Oh, for Chrissakes, Preechr, it's nothing like that. Ugly isn't going to negatively affect the children's health, and neither is belonging to any political party. Smoking, however, kills people, and it has been proven to negatively affect fetal development.

[Preechr]

I-mock Rule That only applies to me #247: I must always be serious when posting. No levity is allowed to me for any reason.

[kahljorn]

Because sterilizing ugly people is so hilarious and off-kilter, how could we not recognize the brill growing inside of you.

Smoking while pregnant is disgusting, but if you're going to illegalize that why not make it illegal to eat shitty food while you're pregnant? If interest of the fetus health is taken over rights of the parents, it should be known that the ingestion of poor foods can cause birth defects and a plethora of other lifelong health problems.
There's tons of things that can potentially cause birthdefects and health problems, including the poor health of the mother. I just wonder how far a law like this could stretch(that is, if it's interest is for proper fetal development), if it's going to be implemented.

I'm not sure if you can get lung cancer later in life from when your mother smoked while you were in the womb. That just seems strange to me, I think in that sense it's more a case of preexposure than anything(i really can't see how it could effect the health like that unless you had lung cancer all along and it was just dormant), if anything it would be the result of "Parenting" or learned habits. However, I could easily see a child being born with lung cancer or something like that.

[Emu]

It couldn't necessarily be lung cancer, though, because the fetus doesn't actually inhale any smoke. The chemicals enter the fetus' body through the bloodstream, affecting all areas of development.

[kahljorn]

That makes sense to me, emu. What type of effect does it have on the fetus?

[Preechr]

It makes them look somewhat cooler to their fetus friends.

[kahljorn]

You're always so illogical preechr, I mean many fetii don't have eyes to look with! On top of that, most fetus are usually seperated by a wall of flesh and distance. GOD PREECHR!

[Preechr]

Coolness radiates from within. That's why the unborn baby of Brittney Spears is so much more important than that of your average moron. The fetii know what's up, though they have not yet the vocabulary to express their self-loathing toward their unfortunate designation of hostess.

Besides, the nicotine calms their nerves.

[Immortal Goat]

When I said "lung cancer later in life", what I meant was that since the child will be born addicted, they will most likely continue the pattern of smoking, and therefor, through the fault of the mother causing the child's lifelong addiction, that child has a higher chance of developing lung cancer.

Sorry if I didn't make that clear enough.

[kahljorn]

Lifelong addiction? Sorry, I don't really understand that either. You mean you can be addicted to something for life? I thought after a few years of not doing something it's pretty much out of your system? Usually what brings addicts back is their memory of a high(which is a mental addiction, the physical side usually leaves after the drug is completely out of your system, right?) and it making them feel good, but how is a baby going to remember being addicted to cigarettes when it's born, or how it even felt?

Seems too loose to me. I know people who were crackbabies and they didn't pick up a crack habit when they got older, but they had tried it and didn't like it. I think after 20 or so years you can officially consider the addiction dead, and whatever choices they make are their own. Although, I can see arguing the psychological effects of having parents that smoke as being a "Bad influence" or something like that, but that's an issue of parenting rather than fetal development and child rearing.
I just don't see the addiction sticking around that long, unless you're arguing that it makes their brains develop in accordance with the physical addiction which it probably would(like when people addicted to painkillers or sleep meds can't regulate their own pain or sleep without it), slightly, but there's still 20 years of nonsmoking influenced development, theoretically. I guess it's possible, though, it just seems like a pointless argument.

Personally I think worrying about the child growing up and being addicted to cigarettes is pointless next to the diseases you can be born with because of it, which are highly more probably than getting lung cancer, and also the mental diseases that are very prevelant among fetal smokers like add and a few others.

[Immortal Goat]

Well, it's no secret that even secondhand smoke can cause cravings for ciggarettes if you are addicted, and if the mother smoked while pregnant, then I think it's safe to assume that she's not going to stop after the birth, so there will be plenty of that hanging around the child's home.

Still, I see where you are coming from, Kahl, and you do make a logical argument. Like I said, this is a complicated issue, so I don't think there IS a correct answer to it. Our choices are limited. Either let pregnant women smoke and endanger the children, or forbid it and see where that road leads. Either way, it could be devastating.

[kahljorn]

yea, behaviorisms are definitley learned a nd that's a good argument as far as parenting goes, but then we actually start to regulate people's lives and it becomes a severely complicated issue. Do we allow people to have t he freedom to live their lives how they like and the freedom to influence their children with whatever media they desire? Or do we control it? There's really no right and wrong, but there is healthy and unhealthy. Control isn't necessarily healthy, though.

I wish God would guide us to a correct and moral decision.

[Preechr]

Personally and seriously... more or less... I would have to say that there are different sorts of addictions, and the birth defects associated with addictive substances such as crack WAY overshadow whatever might come from any residual effects of smoking tobacco while pregnant.

That being said, I feel that doing anything that might jeopardize the health of an expected baby is morally repugnant, smoking tobacco included. I don't see it as complicated an issue as goat does, however, though I can see many more layers of complexity being involved than he has so far mentioned.

As Kahl is alluding, you have to factor in for the long-term effect on all Americans when you start splitting hairs with restricting liberties. If you can't smoke when your pregnant, then you shouldn't drive when you are depressed and you shouldn't answer the phone when you've had a few cocktails. Does the health of a baby somehow make a crime more criminal? What about the dozen or so lives we could save by stopping a moron with a deathwish from driving around looking for a fuel truck or the hundreds of pensioners we could protect by discouraging a would be phone-scammer?

I work with kids with birth defects every day. I know that some of the moms and dads I help are directly responsible for the problems their kids have. You want to talk about complicated situations? Is it better for a child to live with or without his natural parents when their crack addiction caused his CP? Even when it is known that this cause and effect exists, the laws we have now will place that child back in those hands within six months of birth, generally.

And you want to talk about tobacco?

When I see people debating such mamby-pamby crap as public smoking, and yes, even whatever should we do about moms that smoke, all I see is perfectly useful intelligence wasted. While you guys are fretting yourselves to death over nothing, not only are millions of children in Africa failing to survive the AIDS/Machete gauntlet they are born into, little children in your own backyards are suffering due to much bigger mistakes that, unfortunately, have no impact on the air quality at your local juice bars.

[/highhorse]

[Immortal Goat]

Oh, come off it. We already have laws against smoking crack PERIOD, let alone while pregnant. We are talking about possibly regulating when someone can smoke a perfectly legal substance, and what that would do to the country. Once again, you fail to grasp the point of the conversation.

[Big Papa Goat]

Wait a second, from the start, the argument about how smoking is bad but abortion is fine. Would you say that the right to live comfortably is more important than the right to live? Just wondering really.

[Immortal Goat]

Like I said, for me at least, this issue is complicated. I have no defense for my pro-choice stance while I still hold my anti-smoking stance, that's just the way I think. There are better debaters than I that can argue about this issue, I am just putting in my 2 cents.