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Intro to substance abuse in pregnancy
Intro to substance abuse in pregnancy
Intro to substance abuse in pregnancy
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I believe criminalizing pregnant women that are using drug and alcohol would help stop women from doing harm to her unborn child. Especially women who are highly addictive to drug and alcohol because it means that her fetus will have a high changes of exposure to harm and damage that can potentially have long term effects on the child. Which is why I firmly believed that having criminalizing women who are using any substances of drug and alcohol while pregnant should be held reasonable for inflicting immoral harm to the fetus. Many women already known the consequences of drug and alcohol could do to the unborn child, yet many still do it anyways. By criminalizing them it would help bring awareness to pregnant women to not use drug and alcohol
Banning abortion would hurt the most vulnerable in our society.
Anthony Bradley’s article “Prosecuting drug-addicted pregnant women” states that an “unborn child is not a person, a drug using or addicted pregnant woman cannot be legally charged with child endangerment. Denying the personhood of an unborn baby has been the most effective way of protecting these women from prosecution.” Pregnant women should not be prosecuted if they are using drugs because the child is not legally a person. However I feel that I have to set myself away from my morals for a bit and look at the legal stand that we take on the fetus. Mr. Bradley even speaks on what will happen if the baby is separated from the mother if she is placed in jail. Bradley states that “it hasn’t been proven that putting women in jail and separating them from their children is necessarily better than other options such as government-funded, mandatory drug rehabilitation.” Bradley concludes this article by letting us
“Crack-babies” a media induced phenomena brought about by the climax of public outcry from the results of the 1980’s war on drugs. This term laid the foundation for biased prosecutions which sparked a political crusade during climate of the time. Thus exploiting the public’s fear of children born to substance addicted mother and creating a firestorm of litigation to prosecute pregnant drug addicts. According to Flavin, Paltrow (2010), current evidence points to public stigmas and prejudice as posing a greater danger to both maternal and fetal health than use of the drug itself. Leaving the question as to why addicted women are still publicly reviled for the outcomes of their circumstances. From this abhorrence stems the likelihood that these women would be deterred from seeking prenatal care than to seek help for their addiction; expelling an even greater issue as the concern of health care is then added to the mix. The complex social issues then must be taken into consideration to underscore the need for policymakers to allow for the legal and medical systems to better create programs for these women and allot for rehabilitation instead of punitive solutions.
Abortion has been a subject of controversy over the past century. Eventually the decision was settled in favor of pro-choice, in the Supreme Court case Roe versus Wade. At 10:00 a.m. on January 22,1973, the United States Supreme Court announced that the Texas abortion law was unconstitutional. The Court also declared the Georgia abortion law unacceptable. The vote was seven to two, with Burger, Blackmun, Powell, Stewart, Brennan, Douglas, and Marshall in the majority. Rehnquist and White opposed the decision. Abortion throughout the nation had been declared legal. Abortion laws in thirty-one states, including Texas, were overturned. Fifteen states, including Georgia, would have to rewrite their more liberal laws. Three other states, Hawaii, Washington, and Alaska-where rigid abortion laws had been repealed-had residency requirements or other limits that would have to be eliminated. Only the New York law, which allowed abortion without restrictions, was unaffected by the decision (Gold69).
Women drinking alcohol while they are pregnant should be illegal. Over 6 million women in America drink on a daily basis while they are pregnant, and every year more than 90,000 babies are born with some sort of alcohol-related defect (March of Dimes 2000). In some states a woman is charged with child abuse if her baby has significant abnormalities, but not everywhere. Fetal alcohol syndrome, fetal alcohol effects, and neurodevelopmental disorder are just a few of the problems a child might have if a woman drinks while she is pregnant.
As women, it is important to remember that the reproductive freedoms we now have can be easily taken away. Some people take for granted the accessibility to birth control, condoms, and abortion. President Bush has initiated policies since coming into office that threaten women’s choices. As the Bush administration takes over, it is important for women and men to come together to support women’s rights. “Bush is setting a tone for anti-choice legislation, so I expect that any legislator who is anti-choice will put something in this year,” said Jessica Morgan, president of the Baltimore chapter of the National Organization for Women (Koenig, B2). Legislative, executive, and judicial action can very possibly come together during this administration to limit or eliminate women’s reproductive freedom.
In America we have always preached the act of freedom of speech, and free will but yet we still feel it’s necessary to tell a women when and how to have a baby. Having a baby should always be the woman’s choice. No man no woman should have the right to step in and make that decision for her. How can someone who knows nothing of your past or present struggles tell you, you have no choice but to have this baby why, because abortion is now illegal, how would you feel? Abortion is the act of terminating a fetus within your first 28 weeks of pregnancy. The issue revolving should abortion be legal or illegal has been on ongoing headache for centuries now. I believe abortion has become such a big controversy because we have allowed others to voice their own opinions regarding their religion and personal feelings to convince the world that abortion is wrong and that every baby deserves a chance, when America should not be allowed to make that decision for anyone.
Laws of abortion have changed over the years. Many people argue about abortion, putting its legal status in a bind. Back in the early days, the 1800’s, the thought of abortion was absurd and it was illegal. People that support abortion are known as “pro-choice”, and believe that women have the right to decide if they want to terminate their pregnancy or not. Americans will have a brighter future if they encourage the legalization of abortion.
At any given time there is at least one drug addicted baby is born at NICU "It’s actually pretty horrifying and more and more out of control at the same time"( Brochu). Drug abuse while pregnant shouldn't be permitted. It hurts lots of babies. Mothers doing drugs while pregnant hurts much more than just her. Drug abuse while pregnant is wrong, it can seriously bring harm to the baby; when baby addicts are born there first couple days are pure agony, the baby can grow up with mental and health illness, it is also a cause of death for mom and baby.
...dering of children who have never gotten a chance at a future, should be considered a crime. I think that this idea can reduce the rate of abortion in many ways. Why? Because she would not have to deal with a situation where she would feel afraid, or where the child would be undesirable.
Abortion has been a complex social issue in the United States ever since restrictive abortion laws began to appear in the 1820s. By 1965, abortions had been outlawed in the U.S., although they continued illegally; about one million abortions per year were estimated to have occurred in the 1960s. (Krannich 366) Ultimately, in the 1973 Supreme Court case of Roe v. Wade, it was ruled that women had the right to privacy and could make an individual choice on whether or not to have an abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy. (Yishai 213)
Women’s reproductive rights are a global issue in today’s world. Women have to fight to have the right to regulate their own bodies and reproductive choices, although in some countries their voices are ignored. Abortion, sterilization, contraceptives, and family planning services all encompass this global issue of women’s reproductive rights.
I believe that abortion should be banned. I strongly feel that pregnant women who want to abort their child/fetus should not be allowed to. For one, should one person alone be allowed to control the fate of another? Technically, abortion is murder, since the baby is being killed purposely. Some say that in the early days or weeks of pregnancy (maybe even in the first couple months) the baby is in fact not alive; it is just a bunch of cells. However, the fetus is breathing, and obtaining nutrients from the mother before she even knows that she is pregnant. Within no time, the fetus also has human characteristics: a head, hands, legs, arms, feet, and a torso. Thus, abortion should be legalized only when murder becomes legal, because abortion is murder.
Perspective on Abortion Issues pertaining to abortion have always been contentious in both, the contemporary and traditional human society. Indeed, so emotive has the issue been that it has become one of the topics that have to be and are discussed in politics. Abortion is often defined as the deliberate termination of a pregnancy prior to its attainment of full term and with no intention whatsoever of keeping the fetus. In essence, it always results in the death of the unborn child, which explains why there has been all-ranging controversy. Questions have often been raised about the legality of abortion, with different sides making assertions on why it should or should not be legal.
There are many issues in America today such as violence, drugs, teenage pregnancy that is on a rise. There is also abortion which is what I chose to write about today due to the fact that it has been such a controversial and important issue of my generation although it has been an ongoing issue for centuries going back to 2600 B.C when the first recipe for an abortion producing drug. Since the 19th century English common law forbade abortion. Abortion prior to quickening (feeling life) was a misdemeanor and a felony after that. In the early 1800s it was discovered that human life did not begin when she “felt life” but at fertilization. In 1869 the British Parliament passed the “Offenses Against the Persons Act” Eliminating the bifid punishment and dropping the felony punishment back to fertilization, so across the middle years of the 19th century each state passed their own laws against abortion. In 1967 the first two states to legalize abortion was Colorado and California and by June 1970 New York passed the first abortion on demand law with a 24 week limit it became the 16th state to allow abortion while the other states were still very restrictive and only allowing abortions for pregnancies due to rape, incest, life of the mother or severe fetal handicap.