Conference turris::womannotes-v2

    I've been thinking about case #1 for the past couple of months, but
    have been at a loss on how we should deal with this situation.  To give
    a little more background: the cases involve severely alcoholic women
    who have had one FAS (fetal alcohol syndrome) baby who become pregnant
    again and refuse to cut down on their drinking.  FAS babies are
    generally small, have growth deficiencies before/after birth, and often
    wind up with mental and physical impairments.
    
    I don't agree with allowing a woman to do anything she wants, like
    chronic and excessive drinking or shooting up cocaine, during her
    pregnancy if she fully intends to give birth.  I view these actions as
    a form of child abuse.  Or "potential-child abuse."  I have a lot of
    problems, though, reconciling this view with a pro-choice position
    without getting into all sorts of bioethical quandries.
    
    Case #2 (and case #3, which involves a pregnant woman in Missouri who
    is in jail and is sueing the state for the illegal imprisonment of her
    7 month old fetus -- who was charged with no crime but is "being kept
    in jail") are extreme quagmires.  For those states who want to force a
    woman to bring to term all fertilized eggs (god, don't these
    politicians have better things to do?) ... I think women should have
    hundreds of their eggs in-vitro fertilized and see what the state does
    then ;^).

    It's bizarre!  And terribly scary.

about the frozen embryos - I feel the women should have a choice, and if the 
'father' is not interested, let him sign some legal document or something 
which will (hopefully) prevent him from being responsible/involved with those
children (unless some future agreement between the 'parents' results)

I guess the problem is - what if the two had created a child (children) in the
more traditional manner - it is still possible to have decided on divorce 
before the results were known. What would he do then?


The 'incubator' idea scares the life out of me - and no more tubal ligations! -
soon abstenence will be illegal?!

    Ugh, this is chilling stuff!
    
    I don't know about *YOU PEOPLE*, but I am a human being, *NOT* a human
    incubator!  Next thing you know, someone will propose that since I
    "waste" an unfertilized human ovum every month, and have for years, and
    will continue to do so for many more years, I am obviously heading
    straight for hellfire and damnation -- of course, the situation with a
    *MAN* is much "worse", except that people who come up with ideas like
    these tend to be men, mostly, and so don't apply the really absurb ones
    to themselves.  If all the human sperms produced by even one human male
    were to suddenly become human beings, we all be standing on each others
    shoulders!
    
    Of course, the Catholic church has a vested interest in increasing the
    population even in these days of world overpopulation, because they
    happen to have a celibate clergy (which I think is a bizarre concept,
    but then I am not Christian, let alone Catholic; most rabbis have lots
    of children - very few of whom choose to become rabbis, usually).
    So it isn't real surprising that hospitals run by them would refuse to
    perform sterilizations.  They probably don't do vasectomies either, I
    would guess.
    
    I heard part of that "all things considered" story, too, but I thought
    the frozen embryo scenario was a bit on the silly side.  I wonder what
    these people think the "rights" of sperms in a sperm bank are??
    I would certainly view being forced to implant and bear a whole bunch
    of formerly-frozen-embryo fetuses as slavery.  let the MAN who proposed
    this dumb idea be the first such slave...
    
    /Charlotte

    This string looks as though it belongs somewhere else, probably 183.*.
    I've locked it meanwhile.
    
    						=maggie

This topic is opened up again, though any responses getting into abortion will
be moved to 183 (or the whole string may be merged if it looks like we're wrong
about them being separate).
	Mez

    I believe the reduction of a person's rights based on any single
    ability/characteristic is unfair.  This trend leads me to believe
    that someday the events that occurred in the book "The Handmaid's
    Tale" (by Margaret Atwood), are possible.
    
    I had heard at one point of a divorce proceeding where they were
    arguing over who would get how many frozen fertilized eggs.....the wife
    who wished children still, or the husband whose next-wife-to-be
    was infertile....the whole problem hinged on the fact that there
    were an odd number of frozen embryo's......
    
    -Jody
    

    According to  NPR  this morning, there is a case in Quebec where a
    woman's  ex-fiance  got  a  restraining  order preventing her from
    having an abortion. The Canadian supreme court is expected to rule
    on the case.  

--David

    I talked with someone about the issue of the alcoholic problem
    encountered on the reservations.  *His* reply was that it had nothing
    to do with controlling women and/or their reproductive abilities.
    He feels that particular scenario possibility would be based on
    economics alone.  If alcoholism causes fetal damage, then the child
    becomes a burden on the state, requiring special care and attention
    throughout their lifetime.  By limiting the mother's access to liquor,
    the state is, in effect, protecting its economic base.
    
    When I asked what would be a better way to discourage her from the
    use of alcohol, he suggested the general avenues: AA, etc.  
    
    From an economic point of view, this does make sense.  However,
    there are so many *other social issues* surrounding the problems
    on reservations, [as in all strata of society] that I wonder where 
    one would start to begin solving what seems to be the basis for 
    the high alcoholism rate.
    
    Alcoholism is not confined to the reservations, and to keep pregnant
    women from drinking they don't have enough jails!  *Education*
    *Education* *Education* on the problems of alcoholism *MUST* begin
    in grade school, and continue into every facet of American life.
    
    I am basically opposed to artificial insemination and therefore
    would personally side with the father in the basenote example. 
    
    M 

    Referring back to the situation on the Indian reservation for a
    minute. This situation was written about by a man who is half
    Native American and who adopted a native american child who suffers
    from fetal alcohol syndrome. The man is now a campaigner against
    any consumption of alcohol by pregnant or nursing women. 
    
    Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is a very serious problem for the Native
    American Population. Further, those that don't develop the full
    blown FAS suffer from Fetal Alcohol Effect. One characteristic
    of FAE is diminished responsibility for ones actions. What is happening
    among young Native American women (according to the Newsweek article)
    is that women suffering from FAE are not able to make the connection
    between drinking and FAS because they themselves were damaged by
    alcohol in utero. The locking up of (a?) pregnant woman who
    would not stop drinking was apparently an effort to break this cycle.
    
    Bonnie

    in re .9 
    
    Marilyn we appeared to have entered our notes almost simultaneously!
    
    One further point that I recalled from the Newsweek article is that
    Native Americans appear to be genetically more vulnerable to alcohol
    and thus have a higher proportion of FAE and FAS babies.
    
    Bonnie

    re: Indian Scenario: No easy answer. I dunno what's right. That's
        unusual for someone as opinionated as myself not to have one.
    	But I must say that it's dangerous precedent to put a woman's 
        body in the hands of the law but the poor baby!!
                          
    re: In-vitro: If life begins at conception than in-vitro fertilized
        embryos will have to come to term or it's murder. If the "life
        begins at -9 month" theory becomes law, isn't this a logical
        conclusion? Has medical science reached beyond our social con-
        sciences? Are embryos merely commodities to be bought, sold
    	and pawned in our courts? 
    
    Kate
     
    

    
    re: .8
    
    From the front page of today's NY Times:
    
                        Canada's Supreme Court Rejects
                     Ex-Lover's Efforts to Halt Abortion
    
    Ruling in a major test case, the Canadian Supremem Court yesterday
    unanimously rejected a man's attempt to prevent his former lover
    from having an abortion.  Hours before the decision was annonced,
    the woman's lawyer said she had had the abortion anyway.
    
    The court set aside a lower court injunctin against Chantal Daigle,
    21 years old, which her former lover sought after she rejected his
    proposal of marriage and broke off their eight-month relationship.
    She would have been in her 23rd week of pregnancy this week.
    
    Because the justices did not announce the reasons for the ruling
    and did not say when they would, it is not clear whether Miss Daigle
    may still face contempt of court charges of fines.
    
    Her lawyer, Daniel Bedard, did not say where or when sh had the
    abortion.  Appearing at a special court session in Ottawa, he
    apologized, then asked to proceed with the hearing because of the
    possible contempt charges, which could include a two-year prison
    term and a $42,500 fine.
    
    The abortion case was the first to reach Canada's highest court
    since the justices invalidated Canada's abortion law 18 months ago.
    Taking issue with a procedural requirement that abortions must be
    approved by special hospital committees, the justices said then
    that the law restricted access to abortion and represented "a profound
    interference with a woman's body."  The ruling essentially left
    Canada without a nationwide legal standard.
    
    Since then, at least three other men have obtained injunctions in
    provincial courts to stop their lovers from having abortions.  At
    the same time, anti-abortionists have stepped up their efforts,
    holding demonstrations and winning seats on governing boards of
    hospitals, a move they credit with preventing a number of abortions
    in British Columbia.  They have also sought civil-court rulings
    to establish the rights of fathers or fetuses.
    
    Robin Rowe, national coordinator for the Canadian Abortion Rights
    Action League, estimated that 63,000 aboritons are performed in
    Canada every year, about the same number as before the national
    law was invalidated.  The law said a woman seeking an abortion had
    to prove that the pregnancy endangered her life or health, and a
    hospital committee had to verify the threat.  But Ms. Rowe said
    that few hospitals set up the committees and that enforcement of
    the statute varied from province to province.
    
    Prime Minister Brian Mulroney wants Canada's Parliament to take
    up the abortion issue when it returns from its summer reces..
    
    Mr. Mulroney, who has said that the rights of both women and their
    unborn children must be weighed, favors a vote on the issue but
    has not said when it should be held.  He has denied that his party
    has tried to sidestep the issue, saying the Government was proceeding
    cautiously "so that the legislation is not struck down again by
    the Supreme Court."
    
    Miss Daigle's former lover, Jean-Guy Tremblay, and his lawyer were
    quoted by The Associated Press as saying after the Supremem Court
    announced its decision yesterday that they did not want to press
    contempt charges against her.
    
    Miss Daigle, a 21-year-old secretary from the northern Quebec town
    of Chibougamau, and Mr. Tremblay, a 25-year-old farmer nightclub
    bouncer and car-dealer service representative, met at a shopping
    center last year.  Within three months, he had moved into her apartment
    in suburban Montreal and she was pregnant.
    
    The relationship soon ran into problems.  Miss Daigle maintained
    that after they learned in March that she was pregnant, he became
    abusive.  She said she decided to end the relationship last month
    after an argument in which he grabbed her by the throat and accused
    her of being "too social."  She moved out on July 3 and told him
    two days later that she was scheduled to have an abortion at a hosptial
    in Sherbrooke, Quebec.
    
    On July 7, Mr. Tremblay obtained an injunction barring the procedure.
    She appealed to Quebec's highest court, the Superior Court, which
    sided with Mr. Tremblay and cited a section of the Quebec Charter
    of Rights and Freedoms that says, "Every human being whose life
    is in peril has the right to protection."
    
    Miss Daigle filed another appeal, but declared that she would go
    to an American abortion clinic to end the pregnancy if the courts
    did not side with her.  "My rights are my rights, and they are the
    rights of all women," she was quoted as having said.
    
    A panel of five Quebec judges heard her next appeal and, on July
    26, upheld the injunction.  Justice Yves Bernier said that the right
    to an abortion was "not automatically an absolute right that she
    can exercise arbitrarily," and that the breakup of the couple did
    not justify an abortion.  Justice Bernier also ruled that the fetus
    was "not an inanimate object," but a human who "has a right to life
    and protection by those who conceived it."
    
    After the Supreme Court scheduled yesterday's hearing, the Ottawa
    Government intervened, arguing that abortion was beyond the
    jurisdiction of provincial governments and that Miss Daigle should
    be allowed to have an abortion if she wished because there was no
    nationwide law against abortion.  At the same time, the actor Donald
    Sutherland and Stephen Lewis, a former Canadian representative to
    the United Nations, were among 20 well-known Canadian men who announced
    their support for women's right to abortions.
    
    On hearing of Miss Daigle's decision to go ahead with the abortion,
    Ms. Rowe of the abortion-rights league said, "The decision is a
    victory.  The fact that she had the abortion before the fact caught
    a lot of people by surprise, but I think for us, she symbolizes
    the strength of purpose or determination that women have."

    
    
    Reprinted w/o permission.
    
    Phyllis
        
	

    Since I often listen to news with 1/2 and ear open, I can't give
    exact details of the following, but...
    
    The pregnant woman in Canada [somewhere] who was taken to court by her
    ex-boyfriend and put under court order *not* to have an abortion,
    went back into court yesterday.  Her lawyer admitted that she had
    the abortion anyway.  She was approx. 22 weeks pregnant.  
    
    Now she is very likely going to be facing a jail sentence, or probation 
    at least, for having defied a legal and binding court order.
    
    As I understood it, the "trial" is still going to be proceeded with
    in spite of the fact that there is no longer a viable fetus to argue
    over, and the court's decision is no longer moot at this point.
    
    This case definitely could bear watching.

    1) The whole business of frozen embryos seems ludicrous to me. 
       (Imagine, someday, being a person walking around living your
        life and being able to say that you were once a frozen embryo.
        I can't relate to that.)

        In any case, I don't think that either of the divorcing parents
        should get the frozen embryos (or whatever they are).  At this
        point, I think it is ridiculous for these to people to bring
        a child into the world together.  They don't like each other,
        may even hate each other, are getting divorced, and currently
        fighting, why on earth do they want to complicate matters still
        further by having a *child* together?  People who hate each
        other shouldn't deliberately have a child together.  They should
        just forget about it, and each go off and look for somebody
        else to have a child with, if they want a child that bad.
        I don't think we need to waste time worrying about the rights
        of frozen embryos when there are still so many already born people
        in the world whose rights are being trampled on every day by
        other people.  
    
    2)  The issue of the alcohol problem and Indian women really 
        makes me feel angry.  If white people (men, especially) had
        treated Native Americans decently to begin with this whole
        problem wouldn't exist!  Now, here's another chance for some
        white guy in authority to treat a Native American woman like
        shit - throw her into jail because she's a drunk!  Why is she
        a drunk?  Because she happened to be born an Indian on a damn
        reservation, and she doesn't have one chance in a million of
        making a decent life for herself!  
    
        Just think of it.  Middle-class Americans getting a divorce
        are bickering over what to do with frozen embryos, while meantime
        in the same country, Native Americans have still not completely
        recovered from the fact that their way of life was brutally wiped 
        out by white men so that we could take over their country. 
        We can figure out how to freeze embryos for middle-class white
        Americans to fight over during their divorces, but we can't
        manage to help native Americans have the same opportunities
        for successful lives as whites.
    
    3)  In regard to the boyfriends who have attempted to stop their
        ex-girlfriends from having abortions.  I don't think anybody
        has a right to force a woman to go through with a pregnancy
        if she doesn't want to.  I think if these men want children
        so badly they can go out and find new girlfriends, get married,
        have kids with them, and leave their ex's alone.
    
    Lorna
    

>	If white people (men, especially) had
>       treated Native Americans decently to begin with this whole
>       problem wouldn't exist! 

 That is a cop out. It astounds me that people continue to blame "society"
for everything. Try personal responsibility on for awhile. It may feel tight
at first, but eventually you can grow into it.

 Problem wouldn't exist in the first place, indeed!

 The Doctah

    <----- .16
    
    Play it as it lays!  I quite agree.
    
    

    .16
    
       AMEN Lorna!
    
           Carol

    Lorna,
    
    The people who are making the decisions in the case of the Native
    Americans are other Native Americans, and I believe in the one
    case in question the person who made the decision was also a woman.
    
    Bonnie

    re: .16

    �   They don't like each other, may even hate each other, are 
    �   getting divorced, and currently fighting, why on earth do 
    �   they want to complicate matters still further by having a 
    �   *child* together? 
    
    From what I've seen of the case, they *do* like each other and
    are not "fighting" in the sense of acrimonious battle.  The 
    accounts I've seen indicate that, while they are getting divorced,
    they do care about one another and, apparently, the only point of
    dispute is the disposition of the frozen embryos.  They don't
    wish to have the child together, which is the entire point of the
    litigation.  She wishes to raise a child as a single parent.
    
    Steve
    
    P.S.  ** warning ** warning **   Bad pun with with religious overtones
    (but no intended malice) follows form feed. . .
    
    
    If human life does begin at the moment of conception and it's
    characterised by the infusion of a soul, this case could give an
    entirely new meaning to the (Eldrege Cleaver?) book title "Soul
    On Ice". . .

    Re .20, well, I think it's unfortunate that other Native Americans
    chose to make that decision.  (And, if one was a woman, well, again,
    that's sad.)  That still doesn't change the fact that it was mainly
    white men who put Native Americans on reservations (and kept them
    there) to begin with.  And, also even if other Native Americans
    made the initial decision, that doesn't mean that the authority
    figures that the Indian women actually have to deal with are not
    white - policemen, wardens, judges, lawyers, etc.  I bet most of
    them are white men.  Also, perhaps the attitudes of white society
    had a great influence on the decisions reached by the Native Americans
    in charge.  Still a sad situation, and I don't think that jail is
    the answer for a young, alcoholic, pregnant woman.  And, if alcoholism
    is such a great problem amongst young Native American women then
    that tells me something is very wrong with the way white folks in
    charge of this country have been treating Native Americans.
    
    Re Mark, doctah, I don't think it's a copout.  I think it's history.
    
    Lorna
    

    .17  I've heard this one before...
         Societies who oppress peoples (taking their land, their pride,
         etc.) are to blame.  This didn't happen yesterday!
    
    .21  Just an opinion, but; if a woman wishes to be a single parent,
         I would hope she would choose a donor (preferably the old fashion
         way, unless this is impossible) whom she respected and maybe
         even likes.
    
                  Carol

    Re .21, okay, I *assumed* they didn't like each other if they were
    fighting over the little souls on ice.  If it were up to me they'd
    be on ice forever because I think the only fair way to go is still
    for each to move on and start some new souls with new partners.
    
    Lorna
    
    P.S. How dare you make mock of such a sacred thing? :-)
    

> I don't think it's a copout.  I think it's history.

 If the treatment that white people gave the indians caused alcoholism, then
all indians would be alcoholics, no? To me, it's the same argument that says
that poverty causes crime. If that were true, then all poor people would be
criminal. Instead, we find that some people actually work their way out of
poverty- under precisely the same conditions that their brethren who turned to
crime had. So many people are electrons, searching for the path of least
resistance. So quick to quit when the going gets tough. Everybody has ample
opportunities to quit- to cheat, to take the easy way out. The fact that some
people choose not to means that the easy way out is not an eventuality, just
that the easy way out is... the easy way out.

 There is a serious problem in America with women continuing to ingest
intoxicants which offer serious and clear risks to their unborn. We may
either take the ostrich approach to the problem- ignore it and hope it
goesw away, or we may attemtp to do something constructive. The native americans
feel this problem more than other groups due to the limited size of their
people, the continuing diltution of their gene pool, and the high incidence
of alcoholism. They  are taking drastic measures to ensure the survival of
their people. 

 I would like to see what constructive suggestions you (pl) can come up with
regarding this serious problem. We already have education. Maybe even more
would help, but the majority of modern women know there is a health risk
associated with ingesting intoxicants during pregnancy. So we need to find
some sort of solution to the problem of people that are informed yet continue to
engage is dangerous behavior. Any suggestions?

 The Doctah

    FWIW.  My family lived on the Hopi reservation (surrounded by the
    Navajo reservation) for fifteen years.  I don't recall seeing any white
    police officers, judges or whatever.  And I also don't accept that the
    "white man did the Indians dirty therefore the Indians have no personal
    responsibility for what they do".   Good grief!!  The drunk (no
    adjectives please note) is responsible for recovery not society.   And
    I think locking someone up to prevent them drinking is abhorent to my
    sense of personal freedom and choice but even having to discuss the
    subject is a sad commentary on our state of affairs.                                         
                                      

    .25
       > path of least resistance - the easy way out<
      
         The easy way out of anything is to end one's own life..(Opinion)
    
    as for suggestions - jail is not one of them.  People who do give
    a damn, need to reach these people, win their trust and share their
    education with them.  
    
    C.

    re: .24
    
    Moi?  Make mock?  Why Lorna, I'm floored!  I'm flabbergasted!  
    I'm. . .fumigated!
    
    Meanwhile, my preference would also be that they chose new partners.
    The problem, as stated by the woman in an interview, is that she
    doesn't know when, if ever, she'll find an appropriate new partner
    and she feels strongly that now is the right time for her to raise
    a child.
    
    Steve

    Re .25, I disagree with some of your stated conclusions.  I think
    that in saying that if the way white people have treated Indians
    has caused alcoholism, then all Native Americans would be alcoholic, and
    that if poverty caused crime all poor people would be criminals,
    is simplistic.  So, all Native Americans don't succumb to alcoholism, so
    all poor people don't become criminals?  So, what.  Nothing is
    absolute.  The problem here is that a significantly high number
    of Native Americans have an alcohol problem, and coincidentally
    white people (gov't) have been treated Native Americans terribly.
     Also, the crime rate is also higher in poor neighborhoods, because
    it's so difficult to get out and make a successful life, that many
    of the people in disillusionment turn to crime.  So, a small percentage
    manage to make it out!  Does that mean that we don't owe the rest
    of them some help?  Does that mean that the ones who have problems
    that prevent them from winning scholarships and joining our wonderful
    middleclass white society, should be condemned and left to their
    fates, without our help?  I don't accept this.
    
    You seem to think that if you were born on an Indian Reservation
    or a hispanic or black or even white person in a horrible ghetto,
    that you could very easily with just a little effort on your part
    become an engineer at DEC?  Give me a break.  You are dreaming,
    you are naive, and you have no compassion (IMO).  You do not make
    any allowances for individual sets of circumstance, which are beyond
    the control of the individual, which can account for the direction
    a life takes.  You make no allowance for luck, for being in the
    right place at the right time, for coincidence, for even being better
    looking or having what is considered a "better personality", for
    having a higher IQ, for being in one particular instance in life
    where for some reason you were inspired to achieve something while
    another who missed that but had something negative happen can't
    bring themselves to try any more, you make no allowance for a life
    being so messed up by the time a person is 18, that they already
    feel it's over and to late, you make no allowance for special talents.
     It's no fun being poor, and living on the street, or in a dump.
     I don't think anybody sets out to achieve it, and you never know
    how difficult something might be for another person, just because
    it was easy for you.
    
    Lorna
    

    mothers who ingest intoxicating substances while pregnant are often
    NOT in control of their actions.  Many of them are ADDICTS.  These
    are the same women who may have contracted aids through needles,
    or may give birth to children who are already addicted to alcohol
    or cocaine.  This country needs MUCH MORE work on treating addicts.
    Addicts who abuse themselves, their spouses, their children.  Addicts
    who need help and understanding to make it back from the edge. 
    Incarcerating them or serving court orders on them to force withdrawal
    is no solution.  We need to treat (in this case) the WOMEN first,
    help them be healthy first.  If they are construed as solely vessels
    of birth, they must feel even more discounted by society than they
    already feel for any other weaknesses they have, or faults, or habits.
    
    -Jody
        

    Open question to all who believe that a young mother should be able
    to drink while pregnant::
    
    		WHAT ABOUT THE BABY??
    
    
    Kate
    

    The Native American situation was one where the attempted cure
    for the problem was imposed by the Native American peoples under
    reservation law. The problem is that pregnant women who suffer
    from FAE apparently have dimished personal responsibility i.e.
    they have been harmed in some fashion by the fact that they were
    also damamged by alcohol in utero, and lack impulse control. (Again
    this information comes from my reading of the Newsweek article,
    so may be in error). The people on the reservations are trying to
    find a way to break this cycle.
    
    Bonnie

    If the rationale for this is to prevent the burden on society that
    damaged children impose, why stop with NA women?  It's well-understood
    that many other behaviors contribute to early disability and/or death
    in middle-class white men (especially) whose families typically require
    societal assistance in that event, but I don't see us jailing such men
    for engaging in them.  Drinking is certainly one of them.  Smoking is
    another.  Overeating and/or failing to exercise is yet a third.  Not
    wearing appropriate safety gear (helmets, seat belts, &c) while
    operating a vehicle.  Obsessive/aggressive approaches to work and other
    people ("Type A" behavior)....   
    
    And we could certainly make a strong case for outlawing behaviors (such
    as hostile takeovers and leveraged buyouts) that are well-understood to
    cause serious psychological and socioeconomic damage to the people 
    displaced thru no fault of their own by these events, people who then
    require, and whose families require, financial and psychological
    support from the social infrastructure for some indeterminate period
    while they attempt to rebuild their lives.
    
    The legitimate possibilities for such constructive intervention are
    nearly unlimited.  The social benefit of preventing FAS or FAE in the
    children of alcoholic NA women is pretty small potatoes compared to
    what we could be doing, yet it's on these women that we focus.  
    
    Sounds as though there's more going on here than meets the eye.
    
    						=maggie

With regard to Lorna's point in .16 about frozen embryos, that "They should
just forget about it, and each go off and look for somebody else to have a 
child with, if they want a child that bad," the reason the frozen embryos
exist in the first place is generally as a result of in vitro fertilization,
probably because of the woman's inability to conceive "naturally."  

In many (most?) cases, the woman's alternative is not to go find someone 
else to child with, go to bed with him, and have a baby nine months later.
It's a course of fertility drugs.  It's surgery to have the eggs removed from 
ovaries.  It's a cost of *many* thousands of dollars.

Thus, the suggestion in .16 is tantamount to a suggestion that the woman throw
away an enormous investment -- in time, in pain, in effects on her health, in
money -- and start all over again.  I think it is understandable if she wants
to trade all of that off against having the child of the "wrong" father.

None of this holds for the man, of course.  Unlike the woman, he can't grow 
the embryos into babies by himself; and unless he happens to marry another
woman with the same fertility problems, it would seem insane for him to want
to have the embryo from the egg from his ex-wife implanted in his new wife.

	-Neil

I think the following example is _much_ more conducive to discussing the issue
of what a woman does with her body, how society treats the embryo, etc. It
strips away the issues that I believe Maggie is hinting at, and I agree with;
punishment or restriction of women being more acceptable because it's _always_
been more acceptable.
	Mez

The San Jose Mercury News carried the following (AP) story on Saturday,August
5, 1989 on page 21A:
 
Jefferson City, Mo.
A lawyer has filed suit contending that the state is illegally imprisoning a
female inmate's fetus, citing Missouri's anit-abortion law that says life
begins at conception.
  "If life begins at conception, then fetuses are supposed to be like anyone
else - they're a person and they have constitutional rights." Michael Box said
Thursday in a telephone interview from Oak Grove.
  Along with declaring that life begins at conception, the preamble to
Missouri's anti-abortion law - key portions of which were upheld last month by
the U.S. Supreme Court - extends to the unborn "all the rights, privileges and
immunities available to other persons."
  Box filed suit earlier this week in federal court in Jefferson City on
befalf of Lovetta Farrar's unborn child.
  The suit on behalf of the fetus contends that it has been imprisoned at the
Chillicothe Correctional Center without having been charged with a crime,
allowed an attorney, convicted or sentenced.
  It is also being denied adequate diet and medical care because of
condidtions at the prison, the suit charges.

    re .34, Regarding your comment that it's "tantamount to a suggestion
    that the woman throw away an enormous investment - in time, in pain,
    in effects on her health, in money - and start all over again."
     I can't help but think that in a way that describes many divorces
    anyway, even without the frozen embryo issue.
    
    I admit that it is all too easy for me to forget to try to imagine
    the feelings of women who want children very badly, and yet can't
    have them, because I've never been in this situation.  When I am
    forced to stop and consider these feelings, of course I sympathise.
     However, unless the father agrees to her having these frozen embryos
    I, personally, don't really think it's right for her to use them.
     He would still be the biological father, and all sorts of confusing
    issues could crop up in the future.  What if he later decides he
    has a right over the child?  What if she needs money later on and
    sues him for child support?  Just too messy.
    
    Lorna
    

    If the state were (and let us hope they do not) to legislate how a
    woman must care for her body during her pregnancy or marriage it 
    would only seem fair that the state would look at the responsibilities
    men have to care for their reproductive organs.
    
    Hypertension, diabetes and other illnesses that are affected by the use
    of alcohol have a side effect of impotency.  Would not the wife of such 
    a man, who wanted children, have the right to ask the state to
    intervene and prevent the man from drinking alcoholic beverages?

    RE: pregnant women and substance abuse, etc.
    
    Granted, there are many women who do things during pregnancy
    which could be harmful to the fetus. Some smoke, some drink,
    some take drugs, some do a combination of these.
    
    I have $10.00 that says if The Government in Its Wisdom
    chooses to nail these people, it is the poor, minority, and
    disadvantaged who will get the brunt of it. Rich white folks
    have a way of not being bothered about such stuff.
    
    Frankly, rather than poke the Long White Nose of Government into the
    lives of women, how about poking it into the chemical plants,
    waste-producing facilities, etc. etc in areas where the rate of birth
    defects and death is so much higher than normal? 
    
    While I don't believe a pregnant woman should smoke, if she has a
    low birth-weight baby, that's one thing. Series of miscarriages and
    lots of birth defects are quite another.
    
    But then, it's much easier to nail a woman than a businessman.
    
    --DE
    

>The problem here is that a significantly high number
>    of Native Americans have an alcohol problem, and coincidentally
>    white people (gov't) have been treated Native Americans terribly.

 Actually, you said more here than you intended to. The fact that white people
have treated the indians poorly is indeed coincidental to their high proportion
of alcoholics. There is no causal relationship. Would you say that people
that are very rich have been "mistreated by society?" Why, then, do they also
have such a high rate of alcoholism? 

>    You seem to think that if you were born on an Indian Reservation
>    or a hispanic or black or even white person in a horrible ghetto,
>    that you could very easily with just a little effort on your part
>    become an engineer at DEC? 

 Please show me what you read that would indicate I subscribe to such a 
nonsensical theory? Becoming an engineer at all is a significant task.
Having to deal with paying for an engineering education as well makes the
task extremely difficult. This doesn't mean that it can't be done. This also
doesn't mean that there aren't non-traditional avenues that one can explore.
(Sorry about the double negatives)

>You are dreaming,
>    you are naive, and you have no compassion (IMO).

 Well, last time I checked, I was awake. :-) I do have compassion- though
I have been accused of lacking it before. As for naivity, I disagree (but this
is probably your best argument of the three. :-)

>     It's no fun being poor,

 You make it seem like I've never known what being poor is like. A false 
assumption, unfortunately.

>     I don't think anybody sets out to achieve it, and you never know
>    how difficult something might be for another person, just because
>    it was easy for you.
 
 I guess that easy is relative, but it sure hasn't felt easy.

re: Jody

 But what would you do with the women who are pregnant NOW? Are you willing to
give up on their babies? How do you solve the current problem?

 The Doctah

    Re: .33
    
    >If the rationale for this is to prevent the burden on society that
    >damaged children impose, why stop with NA women?
    
    My impression is that this was a decision local to the community of the
    reservation.  As I understand it, native American tribes are fairly
    autonomous within the confines of the reservation, much like any other
    town or community.
    
    Of course, that doesn't prevent someone else from picking up the idea. 
    I think they already have, to some extent.  Wasn't a young woman
    convicted of delivering drugs to her infant during its birth?
    
    As far as the culpability of white men goes, I think it's a moot point. 
    Regardless of who caused it, we now have a problem and that problem
    must be addressed.  Pointing fingers is not productive.

    <--(.40)
    
�    My impression is that this was a decision local to the community of the
�    reservation.  As I understand it, native American tribes are fairly
�    autonomous within the confines of the reservation, much like any other
�    town or community.
    
    hmmm...you might be right about it being a local decision, but so far
    as I know from newspaper accounts of all the hooraw surrounding the AIM
    stuff about 15 years ago, NAs (theoretically) enjoy the full range of
    US Constitutional protections and rights as well as any which accrue by
    reason of their ethnic membership/residence.  Does the Constitution
    allow imprisonment without criminal charge?  I don't think so.
    
�    As far as the culpability of white men goes, I think it's a moot point. 
�    Regardless of who caused it, we now have a problem and that problem
�    must be addressed.  Pointing fingers is not productive.
    
    Huh?  Is that also addressed to me, Chelsea?  If it is, would you
    please explain what you mean?
    
    						=maggie
                                 

    SCENARIO: Indian woman has baby with fetal alchohol syndrome. The
    	      next year she becomes pregnant again and refuses to stop
    	      drinking. 
    
    QUESTION: What about the baby?

                

    Re .39, if becoming an engineer is as much of a "significant task"
    for a white male, as it is for white women, and minorities of both
    sexes, then why is it that most engineers are white males?
    
    There are certainly a great many more white male engineers working
    for Digital than there are Native American or Black women, for example.
    
    Why *do* you think there is a high percentage of Native American
    women who are alcoholics?  And, if, as you say, there is also a
    high percentage of wealthy white women who are also alcoholics,
    then why are they not also being thrown in jail when they get pregnant?
    
    Lorna
    

    Please, allow me to rephrase:
    
    A woman who has had a child with some sort of drug/alcohol fetal
    syndrome is pregnant again.
    
    Question:  What do we do about the FETUS?
    
    Thank you.
    
    -Jody
    

    .45
        what do we do now?  Some women (those who do see medical attention
    for the pregnancy) opt for an abortion or they don't.  Children
    are born every day with defects (i.e., AIDS, addictions, retardation
    etc.).
    
    your question confuses me.  who is WE?
    
                Carol
    

    Maggie,
    
    It is my understanding from the Newsweek article that the
    law inside the reservation is different from the national law,
    the reservation being more nearly like an independant area, and
    it was because this difference exists that the young woman in
    particular was able to be legally confined.
    
    Again they are dealing with woman who are FAE and were themselves
    damaged in utero and (again according to the article) lack the
    ability to understand about not drinking. This appears to be
    more like dealing with a pregnant woman who is mildly retarded
    tho I do not know for sure.
    
    If not locking the mother in jail would you accept confining such
    a person in some fashion to prevent her from harming her own baby
    in turn?
    
    How can the baby be protected in such cases?
    
    Bonn

    re: .46
    
    I was responding to .39 and .43's query, and rephrasing the question.
     I don't have the answers, either.
    
    I say free will has sufficed so far, what has suddenly changed?
    
    -Jody
    

>    Re .39, if becoming an engineer is as much of a "significant task"
>    for a white male, as it is for white women, and minorities of both
>    sexes, then why is it that most engineers are white males?

 It may be somewhat related to the number of white male engineering students
vs the number of female and minority engineering students. FWIW- the number of
minority engineering students is actually much higher than the number of
minority engineers working in american companies for two reasons- 1) many
minorities come from overseas and stay on for advanced degrees 2) they 
return to their countries after getting their phd.

 If you look at the ratio of male/female engineering students, it currently
runs about 5 or 6 to 1. If you look at the number of new engineers, the numbers
roughly correspond. But this is a digression.

>    Why *do* you think there is a high percentage of Native American
>    women who are alcoholics?  

 Because a high percentage of them are unhappy and uneducated. They turn to the
bottle to assuage their unhappiness.

>And, if, as you say, there is also a
>    high percentage of wealthy white women who are also alcoholics,
>    then why are they not also being thrown in jail when they get pregnant?

 Well, first off, the numbers bear out that a high percentage of wealthy white
males and females are alcoholics. The reason that they aren't being thrown
into jail is the same reason that poor white women aren't being thrown into 
jail- because no one in jurisdiction is willing to try to put them in jail.
Also- (and I'm sure this is what you are looking for) wealth has additional
legal advantages (unlike you and I).

 The Doctah

    Jody,
    
    If I was referring to a fetus, I would have used the word fetus.
    I was referring to the end product, after birth. A deformed baby.
    
    Kate
    
    

>     I don't have the answers, either.
>    
>    I say free will has sufficed so far, what has suddenly changed?

 I am frankly shocked that you would hold such a position. It is obvious that
you have never seen the results of FAS.

 How would you respond to those that say that "free will has sufficed so far"
in dealing with discrimination?

 We are talking about individuals here. They are nameless and faceless to you,
but some people have to deal with them every day. I'm certain that you would
not have preferred that your mother drink herself into oblivion every day
while she was carrying you. 

 It is not "somebody else's problem" any more than discrimination and violence
is.

 The Doctah

    I like the idea of putting businesses that pollute and make the
    environment unhealthy for the fetus on the line for their actions. 
    Teratogenic chemicals are probably a lot more common than we currently
    suspect.  Alas, it is so hard to point specific fingers in cases like
    this.
    
    To answer Lorna's question about "rich, white women": the difference is
    that tribal law is in affect in this specific case, not U.S. law.  I've
    never heard of this concept being applied via the U.S. courts.
    
    After reading the responses I think jail is definitely the wrong
    approach; treatment to help the woman get off the "drugs" is a
    definitely a better approach.  And my first cut at "drugs" would have
    to include tobacco and cocaine, as well as alcohol.  The reason for
    these 3 specific ones is that there is now a significant amount of
    evidence on their affects on fetal development.  A lot of these side
    affects haven't been well understood until the past decade or so.  In
    the case of cocaine I'm not sure if there's a lot of evidence as to its
    long term affects; the only thing I'm aware of is that the baby will go
    through the full withdrawal symptoms an adult would go through, and
    that the babies tend to be much more irritable.
    
    But the question in my mind, still, is does the government have the right
    to tell a pregnant woman what she can and can not do?  To say that the
    government does have an overriding right in protecting the fetus from
    environmental harm  indicates that it also has the right to dictate a
    whole lot of other things with respect to a woman's control over her
    body.  Yet I kinda agree with Kate Donovan that somewhere, somehow, the
    "unborn baby" does figure into the equation.

    .48 thanks for the clarification.  
    
    Also, it does get scary if (ex. #.39 & .43 and .31) we (the people)
    feel justified in determining what is right for the unborn, and
    the proposed unborn of those who have these health problems (including
    alcohol).  
    
    has the tone of Hitler.  all should be blue eyed and blond would
    be next.....
    
            Carol ( a browned eyed brunette )

    Carol,
    
    Actually part at least of this discussion was as a result of
    a minority people feeling that far too many of their number
    were being born with problems ranging from serious impulse control
    to severe retardation and deformity from a preventable cause.
    
    Bonnie

    .55
    
        Bonnie,
    
    Your statement regarding minority people feeling that their offspring
    are being born with problems due to these issues may indeed be
    true, BUT, I am also concerned that if our U.S. Government gets into
    their underwear, more abuse is likely.  As someone else stated
    the Native Americans have their own laws for their own reasons.
        
    As previously stated: If you (all) give a damn, bring your knowledge
    to these people (the poor, uneducated, substance abusers, etc.).  
    I am against the legal system being involved here.  Education and self 
    worth needs spreading.....to prevent birth defects overpopulation, etc.

      Carol

>bring your knowledge
>    to these people (the poor, uneducated, substance abusers, etc.). 

 Yes, I agree without reservation. The fact remains that some people are 
not "ready" to be helped. Do we simply dismiss their unborn children to be
casualties of a time when nobody gave a damn? Or do we try to find some way
to prevent the problem? I don't want to see anyone go to jail because they
can't control themselves, but I would like to see deformed babies born
even less. Especially when the defects are predictable and preventable.

 the Doctah

    Re: .41
    
    >Is that also addressed to me, Chelsea?
    
    Nope.  Sorry, I should be more careful to label these things.

    Re: .56
    
    Education has limited effectiveness with those who are mentally
    impaired by FAE and FAS.  Also, alcoholism is a long-standing problem 
    on the reservations; endemic, you might say.
    
    _Good Housekeeping_ or _Ladies Home Journal_ or some such magazine
    recently had an article by Michael Dorris about his adopted son with
    FAS.  The boy came from a reservation and was/is significantly
    retarded, though hardly helpless.

    This whole string scares me...where do we draw the line?
    
    RE: Burden to society...
    
    Shall we just sterilize wellfare women?  more children means more moeny
    we have to dish out.
    
    How about retarded persons or  any persons with a genetic handicap?
    Their offspring could be more of a burden to society or even yet the
    offspring could suffer endlessley with the same handicap?
    
    Any druggies or alcoholics - just throw them in jail to keep them away
    from their addiction?  How about women who smoke, eat the wrong foods,
    exercise too much or too little, have too much stress at work, lift
    things that are too heavy...the list could be endless.
    
    Perhaps we should just throw all pregnant women in pregnant womens
    hospital - they all have to stick to a tight regimen of food, drink,
    exercise and sleep.  No stress or anxiety allowed either.  It may sound
    ridiculous but to me this sounds the way we are headed.
    
    I don't like anymore than the next person what is happening to the
    fetus, but having the government step in is no answer.  I agree with
    those that stated, more education about the effects would help.
    However, for a woman who  is mentally impaired by the FAE or any other
    type of mental disorder.. perhaps there could be some home or
    support group that helps these women through the nine months, somewhere
    they are taught the proper pre-natal care.  Of course this costs money
    too, another burden too society.
    

                     <<< Note 735.60 by ACESMK::POIRIER >>>
                                -< frightening >-

<    RE: Burden to society...
<    
<    Shall we just sterilize wellfare women?  more children means more moeny
<    we have to dish out.
    

      This is something I've been wondering about for a long time. I am
      a liberal in most areas but I have seriously thought that some
      persons should be sterilised to prevent un-needed pregnancies. Yet
      there is that same problem, who gets to decide?

      Who is hurt if a repeat alcoholic is prevented from having a child
      by sterilization? Should a retarded person be allowed parenthood?
      Does a welfare mother have the right to 6 kids?

      We have discussed to death the issue of whether a woman has a
      right to an abortion. Does she also have a right to bear children
      merely because her body will allow it? In a world of dwindling
      resources is it even ethical to allow the birth of a growing
      number of children who are unable to function and must be cared
      for by institututions? liesl

    in re earlier
    
    The Newsweek article that I am quoting was about Michael Dorris's
    book on his adopted son.
    
    The issue of retarded adults having children is one that I have
    a personal interest in. My 15 year old son is mildly retarded and
    developmentally delayed due to a 'fetal insult', i.e. something
    unknown that happened while his mother was pregnant with him.
    (We adopted him at the age of 7). 
    
    Bonnie

>    I don't like anymore than the next person what is happening to the
>    fetus, but having the government step in is no answer.  

 If nobody steps in, then we have failed to prevent an avoidable tragedy.

>    I agree with
>    those that stated, more education about the effects would help.
>    However, for a woman who  is mentally impaired by the FAE or any other
>    type of mental disorder.. perhaps there could be some home or
>    support group that helps these women through the nine months, somewhere
>    they are taught the proper pre-natal care.  

 That's all well and good, but the vast majority of these women are unwilling
to go to such a place voluntarily. They want to stay home and drink.

>    Of course this costs money
>    too, another burden too society.

 It can't cost society any more than having to support a mentally retarded
child throughout its life.

 The Doctah
 

    It's alot easier for me to disregard the needs of a 6 week old fetus
    than for me to disregard the needs of a retarded person whose condition
    could have been prevented.
    
    In a world of reproductive choices I can not figure out why society
    has these problems, (In an earlier note, Carol, the "we" referred
    to referred to all of us. Society at large.) 
    
    QUESTION:
    If, in theory women have the choice to carry or abort, do we have
    a right to qualify the latter choice? I think, maybe.
             
    
    Kate
    

> whose condition could have been prevented.

I find this turn of phrase very evocative in the current discussion. Predicting
the future is hard, as is cause and effect. We have science and philosophy to
deal with these concepts, as well as common sense and intuition. But looking
back is a lot easier than looking forward. And there's always a ripple effect
(ain't it great we now have a science of chaos?). 

I think I believe in control over other people and the future a lot less than
some others. I don't mean morally, should, I mean possibly, can.

That's why I find positive influence and allowing for 'free will' so appealing.
I think they are stronger and deeper than brittle rules.
	Mez

re: Kate

>    It's alot easier for me to disregard the needs of a 6 week old fetus
>    than for me to disregard the needs of a retarded person whose condition
>    could have been prevented.

 Having just dealt with yet another intense meeting, my brain is probably
doing a shut down, but could you explain that? I just don't seem to see
what you're saying. Seems to me that in order to avoid having the 6 week
old fetus become a retarded person, some regard must be given to its needs.
What am I missing?

re: Mez

>That's why I find positive influence and allowing for 'free will' so appealing.
>I think they are stronger and deeper than brittle rules.

 It just seems that you are writing off all the children of mothers who make
choices that endanger their children. And my guess is that this is happening 
only because the children are not yet born. Obviously, a woman who is an
alcoholic to the point where she is negligent to her children is subject to
having the children removed from her. Yet a woman who is an alcoholic and
is negligent to an unborn child ought to be left alone. Sure, we can tell her
that she's possibly harming her child, but that's the end of it. We have 
discharged all of our responsibility in the matter.

 Now all of this is logically consistent with the idea that you are not a person
until birth. On the other hand, I don't think anyone wants to see preventable
tragedies occur.

 Where does this all leave us? I don't like the idea of women being put in
prison because they won't stop drinking while pregnant. It is worrisome in
light of the tendency of government to expand its powers and find new reasons
to (in this case) imprison pregnant women. On the other hand, closing our eyes
to the situation around us is moral cowardice (IMO). Perhaps the solution
would be to have secure detox centers where women who were alcoholics could
go and live, get proper prenatal care, have their children, and live for
a few months after the baby was born before returning home. This place
would provide a clean and healthy environment where the mother could go
through gestation with proper care. So it would be a place that would be alot
more reasonable than jail. Whether a woman would be placed in this type of
facility involuntarily or voluntarily depends alot on the situation. I am 
afraid to allow the government the right to imprison women because they are
pregnant and do x behavior. The potential for abuse of power is high. But I 
think something more must be done than to say "That's bad," and be done with it.

 The Doctah

    <-- -1
    
     I meant I am pro-choice. I meant that there is a significant
    difference with aborting a fetus than choosing to create a de-
    formed one. The latter is a most abhorred form of child abuse.
    
    Kate
    

    re: .66

    � So it would be a place that would be alot more reasonable than jail. 
    � Whether a woman would be placed in this type of facility
    � involuntarily or voluntarily depends alot on the situation.
    
    Unfortunately, I think the question of volition ultimately brings us 
    back to prison.  If the major defining characteristic of a jail or 
    prison is a place of involuntary incarceration, then we're simply
    talking about how comfortable the cell is.
    
    BTW, for the curious, I'm of very mixed feelings here.  Simply letting
    things go as they are does strike me as extremely expensive, both
    monetarily and emotionally.  It seems that allowing unbridled "free
    will" has resulted in a great deal of devestation; lives are ruined
    and, as a society, we are bearing a tremendous burden. One of the 
    problems of "free will" is that it's extremely difficult to pin down.  
    Can an addicted person really exercise "free will", or are they
    enslaved to their addictions?  
    
    Whatever the answer, I guess I'd cautiously favor a program that 
    provided a supportive, theraputic environment for a substance-addicted 
    mother.  The caution part of that has to do with my desire to see a
    lot of checks and balances to see that people are not wrongfully 
    committed to such a program and that involuntary committment happen 
    only when certain conditions are met (e.g. perhaps when a mother of 
    one child already affected by the substance abuse becomes pregnant 
    and refuses to stop drinking heavily, or shooting heroin or cocaine).  
    And, btw, from what I've learned of such abuse, I'd also be willing 
    to listen to proposals that the father be required enter treatment, 
    should he be the abuser.  There's a great deal of evidence to support
    the model that chemical abuse is a family affliction and if either
    parent is addicted, all other family members will eventually receive
    their share of misery and dysfunction.
    
    My strong suspicion is that such proposals won't gain a lot of 
    support in the near future; not only are the moral problems 
    extremely difficult, but I think the monetary cost to do this well 
    would  likely be a good deal more than taxpayers care to support 
    at present.
    
    Steve

I think 'unbridled free will' is a bit of an over-statement.
And rather evocative.
	Mez

    Read the Globe Today (hey what an idea for a slogan) on pages 77
    and 82 about FAS and FAE.
    
    
    Steve

    .57 Doc,
        re: " people not ready to be helped "
    
    I cannot wait around assuming there are people who are not ready
    to be helped...  Even, if I only reach one person who suffers from
    chemical abuse out of a hundred, it was worth my time and effort.
    In other words, I did contribute something!
    
    Some years ago, I worked ( as a volunteer) with parents of troubled
    teenagers.  These children had all sorts of problems, i.e., crime,
    abuse, drinking, drugs, you name it.  It's tough work.  But, I felt
    I did leave an impression on some and hopefully did reach at least
    a few, to change their destructive patterns.  So, what have you
    contributed?  or what are your plans to contribute?
    
    .64 Kate
        I am also Pro-Choice.      

        Carol

    The only way we can insure that there will be no unfit mothers and
    no abused fetus/babies will be to sterilze us all and grow all of
    our children in government operated test tube facilities.
    Of course, .. other problems will then develop that we will have
    to contend with.                                         
    
    It really disturbs me to see well-intentioned but misguided people
    try to legislate perfection.  Life is not a rose garden.
    This isn't and never will be heaven.  
    We cannot force perfection into society by creating more and more and 
    more restrictions and laws.
                                    
    There are those living among us who are irresponsible, who are stupid,
    who are unloving and violent.  We can't legislate a way out of the
    human condition.  There aren't enough jails or enough money to lock
    all of them away until we can take their babies.  We keep swiping
    at symptoms while the conditions that drive people to drink and
    to escape keep growing and growing, producing more and more people
    in search of a way out of reality.  
    
    If RU486 were available at clinics perhaps most of these women would
    prevent pregnancy knowing that they cannot handle raising a child
    but government is trying to take that decision away too.
    Individuals will never assume responsibility for themselves if
    government continues to make decisions for them.  
    
    I wish we could save all of the children, but we can't... we just
    can't.  We can do the best we can certainly and help as many as
    we are able to help but the basic truth is still survival of the
    fittest.  Those woman who are not good mothers will not have strong
    children who survive.  Their genes will not be passed along in evolution
    to perpetuate what they are.  Thats a hard fact of life for all
    animals, not just humans, and a sad fact of life as well.  Perhaps
    God, in His wisdom, made it work that way for a reason.
                        

    Re: .67
    
    >I meant that there is a significant difference with aborting a fetus 
    >than choosing to create a deformed one. The latter is a most abhorred 
    >form of child abuse.
    
    If we accept that definition then -- child abuse *is* a jailable
    offense, n'est-ce pas?

    re:74
    Shouldn't it be? If a woman was fully aware of the deformities that
    can be caused by alchohol and has had 1 or more babies with fetal
    ahcohol symdrome, she is committing child abuse. No?
    
    If I were to take a risk with my year old baby like, for instance
    let her hang from a ledge or walk in the mall alone, don't you think
    "society" would justifyable charge me with neglect? If I was myself
    retarded or of limited capacity, than there would be no intent-
    no malice, therefore no crime but society would still have to protect
    her none the less. A woman's right has to be modified a hair bit
    when she CHOOSES to carry a baby to term. Not for her or for society
    but for the baby.
    
    Am I alone in this thinking?
    
    Kate
    
    
    
    

    I had hoped to type in the Globe article about Michael Dorris last
    night from home but my modem is acting up.
    
    The article mentioned a 25% FAS rate among some Native American
    groups and a 50% FAE rate (as I remember the article). These people 
    are looking racial and cultural distruction in the face if something 
    is not done. The article went on to mention that the reason that
    the women were locked up was that they had no other available 
    solution. There are no programs, no shelters, and no money available
    to help these women. Using jail was considered only because there
    was no other alternative.
    
    Bonnie

    
    FAS?
    
    FAE?
    
    This conference is getting embedded in three letter acronyms. It
    isn't funny when trying to read across the Atlantic, or via another
    slow link to have to back track half a dozen replies in order to
    guess what a noter's shorthand means.
    
    /. Ian .\

    I think   there's  an  unstated  feeling  here  that  it  is  more
    acceptable  to  take  a  baby from his mother than to restrict the
    mother's  behaviour. If a parent is abusing a child, we remove the
    child  from the parent, rather than locking the parent in a school
    of good child raising. Unless alcohol abuse (or anything else that
    the  powers  that  be  consider bad) during pregnanacy is a crime,
    there   are   constitutional   protections   against   involuntary
    confinement.  

    Making alcohol abuse during pregnancy a crime opens up a Pandora's
    box  of  issues.  What  other behaviour would be outlawed? Playing
    tackle football? Touch football? Walking in the park? Picking up a
    kicking,  screaming  child?  Getting out of bed? And who would the
    rules  apply  to?  Since  some  drugs have an effect very early in
    pregnancy,  would  the  rules apply to any unsterilized woman? Any
    woman  not  on the pill? Or just those women who have expressed an
    intention  of having a child? (Since some large fraction of births
    are unplanned, this gets a bit tricky). Any of these rules (except
    all  unsterilized  women)  would  lead  women to not seek prenatal
    care,  as  to  do  so would restrict them greatly. Making prenatal
    care less desireable would be very detrimental.

    The other  side  of  this  is  that one can get very upset hearing
    about FAS and want to do something about it. (The woman in the NPR
    report  who  had FAS and kept having FAS babies who said "I want a
    baby  and they keep taking them away from me" is a strong argument
    to do something.

    I just  don't  see what can be done without violating civil rights
    in a very fundamental way.

    For one  description  of  this  sort of legislation carried to its
    logical conclusion, read "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood.

--David

    Ian,
    
    FAS is Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and FAE is Fetal Alcohol Effect.
    
    Bonnie

    thanks Bonnie.
    
    You have to bear in mind that not only do I have to second guess
    the acronyms, but were we use them we often use different ones (eg
    PMS becomes PMT...)
    
    /. Ian .\

        re .78 Yes David, it *is* a bucket of worms, but one that 
    will not go away. We have to keep in mind that rights
    and responsibilities go hand in hand. Reproductive freedom
    and reproductive responsibility will both have to be taught
    if we are to have a just society. People have to make 
    decisions to have or not have a baby, and decisions on how
    to care for same, pre- and post-natal care alike.
    
    My own feeling is that a foetus becomes viable when the woman
    decides she *wants* to have the child. That when she makes that
    decision, she assumes obligations to the unborn child. And that
    she must be free to *make* that decision. Once the dicision
    to carry the child is made, she has no right to hurt the child.
    
    This assumes the easy availability of abortions. Limiting or
    removing this choice also negates the responsibility of the
    woman to the child. Pregnancy without choice is not motherhood,
    it is slavery.    

    I hate replies that reference a bunch of previous replies, but
    oh well....
    
    RE: .57
    
    The women may not be ready to be helped. Right. So throwing the
    woman in jail prevents a kid with a certain type of birth defect,
    and creates an ACOA. A minority ACOA, whose mother's in jail
    every time she gets pregnant. And whose father probably drinks, too.
    
    RE: I forget - Bonnie's reply 
    
    No programs, no shelters, no money to help these women. Apparently
    the government isn't willing to support programs and shelters, but
    jail's perfectly ok. If this happened to WASPS, the outcry would be
    unbelievable. Don't wanna dwell on what the White Man did to the 
    Native American in the past? What he's doing to the Native AMerican
    RIGHT NOW will suffice, thank you.
    
    RE: .61
    
    Retared people being parents. There are lots of retarded people who 
    would be (and are already) *fine* parents. People who used to be called
    "slow" back in the agrarian days of this country, are now being
    diagnosed in school as "retarded". Back then, Lem bcame a farmer 
    like his old man and Edna became a farmer's wife. They were a little
    slow, OK, but they raised kids (some of whom probably went to college)
    and ran the farm. PEople who are able to understand right and wrong,
    deal with money, make a living, read the newspaper and understand
    basic social mores, understand basic principles of health maintenance
    can be fine parents. 
    
    
    The Native American is still being hurt by the White majority and
    White government. When a culture with its mores and behaviours is
    disrupted and systematically *destroyed* (a well-known technique
    for breaking the will of people who you want to conquer) the society
    breaks down and anti-social behaviour emerges. I am not a socioloigist
    (and perhaps someone could expand on my sophomore-year rememberances)
    but it is clear that the Native AMerican population must work hard to
    restore its own culture and civilization. They are trying to do that
    (and being thwarted by the government in keeping some of their
    land) in some places. It's a matter of rebuilding 200 years of 
    crushed civilization and spirit. I don't know if putting women in
    jail is an answer - this is treating a symptom, not a disease.
    
    IF the jailing were in keeping with a Native American social more,
    I guess I'd go along with it. If it's a last-resort because no
    help is available, I'm skeptical.
    
    --DE
    
    

    re .82
    
    It's not a really useful thing to talk about helping people rebuild old
    cultures and ways of life.  It's not realistic.  The world changes and
    the success or failure of a given "group" often lies in it's ability to
    cope with change.  Most Americans speak English, the nomadic lifestyle
    of certain tribes has been curtailed by schools, roads and barbed wire
    fences on the ranges.  The Navajo tribe has been successful in
    maintaining itself as a cultural entity because the people have always
    drawn what they needed to survive from the resources around them. 
    They've gone with the flow so to speak.  They've changed with the times
    and survived.  Other tribes haven't fared so well.   There seem to be
    two lines going in this note.  One is the "rightness" of imprisoning a
    woman who engages in activities dangerous to the health of her
    developing child.  The other is the question of accountability for the
    the social milieu that fosters self and fetus destructive behavior. 
    And then I suppose there's the subset of what's to done about it all!
    
    Dondi

> I;m going to help you whether you want it or not, dammit!!!

 Not really. It's more like "If you won't help yourself, we'll prevent you
from harming your baby." or "You can harm yourself if you want but you
can't harm your baby."

 The Doctah

    Dawn,
    
    All I know is the information presented in the Globe article.
    I'm not defending putting pregnant women in jail, but it did
    feel that it was important to bring out the actual facts of
    the case(s) i.e. that it was Native American women and men who
    were imposing this draconian solution on women of their own
    tribes in the face of a terribly high rate of retardation and
    other damage to children from alcohol. Further the women in
    question were individuals whose impulse control had been
    severely damaged by exposure to alcohol when they were in utero.
    
    This to me is very different from White men throwing Native
    American women or any women in jail because they are substance
    abusers and are pregnant.
    
    Perhaps a better solution would be for those who find this
    situation appaling to try and find if they can contribute time
    or money to helping women who are FAE and FAS from having
    FAE and FAS babies in turn.
    
    As far as the retarded being parents. It isn't as simple a picture
    as you draw Dawn. In general, retarded parents produce environmentally
    retarded children. They often lack the ability to interact with children
    in a fashion to promote normal pyschological development. There
    have been many cases of adults whose retardation was the result
    of non genetic factors whose children were genetically normall but
    who grew up to be retarded and to have other behavior and learning
    disabilities.
    
    With coaching by social workers, family etc. many retarded adults
    have had successful parenting experiences. But there is a definite
    need for this sort of intervention.
    
    This is one question that my husband and I keep in the back of our
    minds. Should our Stevie become a father? He is genetically normal.
    If he does so we would feel very strongly responsible towards his
    children. We would want to be sure that we could help Stevie compensate
    for the handicaps that would affect his parenting.
    
    Bonnie

    Dawn said a good chunk of what I wanted to say.  Consider these
    points:
    
    * This woman has had FAS for what? twenty years or so.  She has
    received (as far as we can tell, and I'll bet it's so) only the
    most perfunctory care or consideration to date.  *Now*, suddenly,
    she has a problem?  Why didn't the tribe that wants her locked
    up now want to do anything before?
    
    * FAS and FAE may be very, very likely, but they are not inevitable.
    My suspicion (zero data) is that general maternal health has a
    very strong effect on them, and that what this woman needs (given
    that she has only limited intelligence) is constant *care* rather
    than constant abstinence enforced by incarceration.
    
    * This woman may not have the brain of a Curie, but anyone who has
    enough brains to acquire money to purchase anything, can learn the
    simplest version of the factors, and chivvied into making something
    like an informed choice.
    
    * If unemployment is such a problem on the reservations, and if
    these people are so worried about their cultural survival, then
    these unemployed tribal members can jolly well be the people spending
    the time and effort (in six 4-hour shifts, if need be) on getting
    this woman (and the other people, men as well as women) up to speed
    physically and factually.
    
    							Ann B.

    RE: Bonnie
    
    Granted, there are retarded people shou oughtn't be parents -
    probably a lot of them. My point was that retardation ALONE
    is not a good enough reason to object to their being parents. OK?
    
    Also, I realize that the Native AMericans are imposing this
    on "themselves". However, I believe (Dondi, correct me if I'm 
    wrong) that reservations are VERY dependent on government funding,
    and there has been no effort tosupply  any kind of support
    services for these women.
    
    Dondi - I don't say the Native AMerican has to return to the
    "original" culture and mores. What I'm saying is that they are
    starting from square one to build a culture, as their cultural
    traditions have been (almost) destryoed, and they have as yet
    nothing to replace them with. When a culture *evolves*, new ways
    replace old; when the culture is destroyed from outside, the
    evolution becomes very difficult.
    
    Doctah - so we're going to "help" the baby, and saddle the *child*
    with an alcoholic family, anywyay. That's "help"? Isn't that kind
    of like "I'll help you *before* you're born, but once you're here,
    you're on your own." ???
    
    --DE
    

	The woman did not get pregnant by herself - if she is to be
	put in jail so shouldn't the man who is the father of the
	child.  He must have known that she had a problem but where 
	is is responsibity - no birth control - no jail for him.

	Also, unless I am really mistaken - there is a period of time
	when someone stops cold turkey that their body is not pleased.
	Does anyone really think that this is a good idea, putting at 
	woman who is pregnant especially if it is the during the early 
	stage when a lot of other changes are occuring to her body 
	through this?  And if the health of the mother is damaged/weakened 
	that will also have a large impact on the outcome of the 
	pregnancy and the child if it survives.

	How much pain do you want to inflict on women?  If this situation
	is to be improved - the women need to be helped not hurt.

	_peggy

		(-)
		 |
			Ye who controls the gold
				still makes the rules.

re: Ann

>*Now*, suddenly,
>    she has a problem?  Why didn't the tribe that wants her locked
>    up now want to do anything before?

 No. Before she was only affecting herself. Now she affecting her unborn child.

>    * This woman may not have the brain of a Curie, but anyone who has
>    enough brains to acquire money to purchase anything, can learn the
>    simplest version of the factors, and chivvied into making something
>    like an informed choice.

 That's the whole point. She CAN'T make an informed choice because she is a 
slave to the alcohol. Have you never met anyone with a substance abuse problem?

>    * If unemployment is such a problem on the reservations, and if
>    these people are so worried about their cultural survival, then
>    these unemployed tribal members can jolly well be the people spending
>    the time and effort (in six 4-hour shifts, if need be) on getting
>    this woman (and the other people, men as well as women) up to speed
>    physically and factually.

 Now this makes more sense, but you have to remember that most people with
substance abuse problems that aren't already trying to get help are not yet
"ready" to be helped.

re: --DE

>     Doctah - so we're going to "help" the baby, and saddle the *child*
>    with an alcoholic family, anywyay. That's "help"? Isn't that kind
>    of like "I'll help you *before* you're born, but once you're here,
>    you're on your own." ???

 Actually, if you either read or remembered my note that described what _I_
thought should be done, you'd have noticed that I placed special emphasis on
not kicking the woman back out on the streets the moment after she gave birth.
Getting the problem (alcoholism) solved doesn't stop once the baby is born.
We have to give mom and baby a head start so a relapse is less likely.

 The Doctah

    RE: .89
    
    But Doctah....the support services you advocate AREN'T THERE!!
    If they were, there would have been help already!
    
    An active alcoholic's not drinking for x amount of time
    don't mean diddley-squat, especially if it wasn't their
    idea in the first place. She'll head for a bottle immediately,
    9 chances out of 10.
    
    Ya gotta *wanna* or nothin's gonna work.
    
    --DE
    

    The women are not only active alcoholics they are suffering 
    from FAE on effect of which (according to the article in the Globe)
    is to severely affect cause and effect thinking and impulse control.
    
    Bonnie

>    Ya gotta *wanna* or nothin's gonna work.

 Exactly. This is why the "tell them it's wrong and forget about it" idea
is even more doomed than the disallowing the women to drink while pregnant idea.

 The Doctah

    Mark,
    
    You seem to be thinking of this woman as an incubator who drinks.
    (Probably you don't really.  No matter.)  I see this woman as
    young, retarded, ignorant, confused, poorly (as in ineptly done,
    not as in inadequatly) fed, clothed, housed, and trained, who is
    (among other things of which we know nothing) pregnant and an active
    alcoholic.
    
    *I* am saying that *every* deficiency of this woman's life has
    been ignored for her entire life to date.  If this stuff had been
    addressed before, the situation you see now would not exist.  I'm
    tired of people saying we should ignore that and deal with the
    immediate reality.  I want us to think about the *other* people
    who are just starting on her road.
    
    Now, given that she is currently everything in the first paragraph,
    she can still be asked,
    
    Do you want a baby?  If yes, then
    Do you want this baby?  If yes, then
    Do you want a weak, sick, stupid baby who may die?  If yes, then
    How will you take care of your weak, sick, stupid baby?
    
    Enough questions like this can be used to get her to the point
    of consenting to one of:
    
    1. An abortion
    2. Incarceration
    3. 24-hour "house arrest", with regimented diet and exercise, and
    drinking only when streams of nutrients are coursing through her
    veins
    4. Something I haven't thought of
    
    Whatever is done *must* be something she accepts, or it really
    will not ddo even her putative baby any good.
    
    							Ann B.

    Re: .93
    
    >*I* am saying that *every* deficiency of this woman's life has
    >been ignored for her entire life to date.
    
    As far as I can tell, you're assuming that her problems have been
    ignored because there is no visible evidence that they have been
    addressed.  I don't think that's a safe assumption.  There are a number
    of problems in "mainstream" society that have not been addressed
    because of a lack of resources and/or viable solutions.  In the
    relatively resource-poor environment of a reservation, I would expect
    this to be even more of a problem.
    
    >I'm tired of people saying we should ignore that and deal with the 
    >immediate reality.  I want us to think about the *other* people who
    >are just starting on her road.
    
    I don't see how pointing fingers and apportioning blame for the past
    will guarantee (or even help guarantee) that these other people will be
    considered.
    
    >Do you want a baby?  If yes, then
    >Do you want this baby?  If yes, then
    >Do you want a weak, sick, stupid baby who may die?  If yes, then
    >How will you take care of your weak, sick, stupid baby?
    
    If she does has FAE and therefore has an impaired understanding of
    causal relationships, she will have difficulty with such reasonings as
    "If you want a baby, you must take care of your drinking problem."

>    You seem to be thinking of this woman as an incubator who drinks.
>    (Probably you don't really.  No matter.) 

 Well at least you had the smarts to put a disclaimer after that nosensical
statement. 

>    *I* am saying that *every* deficiency of this woman's life has
>    been ignored for her entire life to date. 

 This is pure supposition, but even if it _is_ true, that doesn't make it
right to ignore the child.

>If this stuff had been
>    addressed before, the situation you see now would not exist.

 This assumption is completely untenable. You don't know this. It is possible
that the situation wouldn't exist, but by no means is it guaranteed.

>I'm
>    tired of people saying we should ignore that and deal with the
>    immediate reality.  

 I'm tired of people writing off a generation because the solutions are ugly.

>I want us to think about the *other* people
>    who are just starting on her road.

 Absolutely. This makes perfect sense. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound
of cure. (monday is quote sayings day :-)

 I agree with Chelsea about her ability to understand the situation and make
an informed choice.

 The Doctah

Thanx Mary, Peggy, Dawn, Ann  (I'm just catching up).
	Mez

    Chelsea,
    
    Here's my shot at that difficult concept:
    
    If you drink, you will hurt your baby.
    I don't understand.
    Your baby is growing in your belly, right?
    Yes.
    When you eat, your food goes in your belly, right?
    Yes.
    When you eat, your food goes from your belly to your baby, see?
    Yes.  (Or no.  This can be gone over and over, until "Yes" comes.)
    When you drink, your drink goes in your belly, right?
    Yes.
    When you drink, your drink goes from your belly to your baby, right?
    Yes.
    Now, sometimes, after you drink, you feel bad, right?
    Yes.
    Well, your baby does too, see?
    Yes.  (Or no.  This can be gone o&o, until "Yes" comes.)
    And, sometimes, after you drink, you get sick, right?
    Yes.
    Well, your baby does too, see?
    Yes.
    And your baby is real little, right?
    Yes.
    Well, because your baby is so little, it gets lots sicker than you
    do, see?
    Yes.  (Or no.  This c.b.g. o&o, until "Yes" comes.)
    And, sometimes, you throw up, right?
    Yes.
    See, this is how your body gets rid of bad things, like poisons, see?
    Yes.  (Or no.  T.c.b.g. o&o, u. "Yes" c.)
    Well, your baby gets sick, but it can't throw up, because it doesn't
    know how.  It's too little, see?
    Yes.  (Or no.  T.c.b.g.o&o,u."Yes"c.)
    So these poisons stay in your baby, see?
    Yes.
    And they hurt your baby, see?
    Yes.
    So when you drink, you are hurting your baby, see?
    Yes.  (Or no.  T.c.b.g.o&o,u."Yes"c.)
    Can't you take the drink out of my baby?
    No.  I'm sorry, but no one knows how to take the drink out of anyone.
    Not out of you, not out of your baby, no one.  Maybe next year or
    maybe a long time from now.
    
    I never said it would be easy, or quick, or painless, and I did
    say she might end up in the jail anyhow, but some sort of consent,
    based on something vaguely like understanding, is very important
    to me.  (And I find, very often, that people are/seem intractable
    simply because they never had things explained to them.)
    
							Ann B.

	Why is it that when a woman becomes pregnant, suddenly
	she ceases to exist (especially if she is poor) and only 
	a fetus is left where the woman once was?
	Why is a fetus given more rights than the woman who is 
	wrapped around it?
	Why does a woman get stripped of her rights when she is pregnant?
	This is REALLY scarey to me. I really feel it is a breech
	of my rights to privacy to be talking about what I can or can
	not do to please others if I happen to pregnant. Where does it
	end?
	I can't think of a better or quicker way to start the "Handmaids Tale"
	in 1989, than to talk about this as if women are not even involved.

	Look at what you are saying about women---
	I think it is crazy to look at these incidences and not see the 
	effect it has on women, period. 

	I think the the real  issue here is how to stop women from
	becoming as equal/powerful as men, and if you can control their bodies,
	thats a real good start.

    in re .98
    
    I don't think that anyone here is saying that a woman has ceased
    to exist just because she is pregnant. I do think that if a woman
    chooses to be pregnant than she has a responsibility to that developing
    life. This includes not ingesting substances that could cause the
    child to be born handicapped. Is anyone seriously arguing that a
    pregnant woman has an unlimited right to engage in behaviors that
    put her fetus/embryo at risk? To argue that there are no reasonable
    limitations is just as dangerous as arguing that pregnant women
    should be restricted from any possibly dangerous activity. 
    
    Once a woman has chosen to bear a child she is now responsible to
    another than herself.
    
    Bonnie

    and if she *doesn't* choose, Bonnie...but it happens anyway?
    
    						=maggie

    If the pregnancy is not a matter of choice and she cannot get
    an abortion does that mean she has the right to damage the
    child she is carrying? 
    
    Bonnie

    Well, in some sense I think that that's what I'm asking.  You argue
    (rightly) that when a woman chooses to get pregnant, then she assumes
    some degree of responsibility for the wellbeing of the child which,
    presumably, is the point of the exercise.  Given that the child will
    have been influenced by intrauterine events, the responsibility
    presumbaly extends to making the prenatal environment as conducive to
    a decent human future as reasonably possible. 
    
    So far so good, given we leave "reasonably" tbd.  Probably few people
    would argue with that.
    
    But what of the woman who either (a) doesn't intend to get pregnant,
    but gets pregnant anyway or (b) positively intends NOT to get pregnant,
    but gets pregnant anyway?  Does she _also_ acquire responsibility?  And
    if so, why and what kind? 
    
    Moreover, what responsibility does the social system have toward this
    prospective mother?  If she is obliged (by threat of societal action)
    to modify her personal behavior in a direction beneficial to the
    foetus, should not the society be obliged to provide her with the
    material benefits which are _also_ known to conduce to a good future
    for the child?  If society has no such responsibility, where does their
    authority over her come from?  If they have such a responsibility, what
    does their failure to meet it do to the woman's obligation in turn?
    
    It's very easy, but in my opinion scarcely sufficient either in science
    or equity, to smugly assign all responsibility to the individual woman. 
    We do that all too often.
    
                                                =maggie

    Maggie
    
    I'll not argue that we need as a society to tremendously improve
    the environment that our pregnant women, young mothers and small
    children live in. Especially those who are living in marginal
    conditions.
    
    But I do think that if a woman has gotten pregnant, and is going
    to carry that pregnancy to term then she should 'first of all do no
    harm'. Just as it isn't fair to put *all* of the responsibility
    on the woman, it isn't fair to say 'well society blew it, there
    are no support services, women have the rights to control their
    bodies etc., as an excuse for neglecting proper prenatal care.
    
    If a woman didn't want to be pregnant, but was not able to get an
    abortion, I believe she still has a responsibility not to harm
    the developing embryo.
    
    Bonnie

 re: recent exchange between Bonnie and Maggie

 I agree with Bonnie. 

>    Moreover, what responsibility does the social system have toward this
>    prospective mother?  If she is obliged (by threat of societal action)
>    to modify her personal behavior in a direction beneficial to the
>    foetus, should not the society be obliged to provide her with the
>    material benefits which are _also_ known to conduce to a good future
>    for the child?  If society has no such responsibility, where does their
>    authority over her come from?  If they have such a responsibility, what
>    does their failure to meet it do to the woman's obligation in turn?

 I think this whole section gets to the heart of the matter. 

 Does society have an obligation to provide an environment conducive to the
development of children by every (or any) mother who becomes pregnant (by
choice or accident)? My that's a tough question. On the one hand, we want the
best environment for our children (and the children of those who are less
fortunate). On the other hand, all of these things COST. So where do we get
the money to pay for these things? By raising taxes, of course. As it turns
out, raising taxes is of limited practical value, both in terms of revenue
generated and the government's ability to further increase revenue as time
passes. 

 I do not think that society has the responsibility to provide all or even
many material things that are conducive to child development and rearing
through a centralized government. While the society has the right to enjoin
robbery, it does not have the responsibility to provide the would-be robber
with the material things that would preclude his/her motivations for robbery.
A similar tenet applies.

 Perhaps the authority of the government to enjoin someone from harming
unborn children is yet to be established. It seems to be inextricably tied to
the question of at what point does a developing fetus become a human being,
with all the rights of a human?

 And as for the last question, I don't think that someone else's failure to
live up to their responsibility necessarily absolves you of your responsibility.
It makes a difference whether that person willfully failed to live up
to his/her/its responsibility or not. 

I don't think that you could say, "Well,
the government didn't give me vitamins, nourishing food, comfortable clothes,
a roof over my head, or money, so I may now do whatever I want to my unborn
baby."

 The Doctah

    
    re .103:
    
    >If a woman didn't want to be pregnant, but was not able to get an
    >abortion, I believe she still has a responsibility not to harm
    >the developing embryo.
    
    Responsibility without any rights?  They go hand-in-hand.
    Either you have both or neither.  I do very strongly believe that.
    
    "not able to get an abortion" is also unclear.  Is that because someone
    stopped her from exercising her *constitutional* rights?  Because she
    was ignorant of her constitutional rights?  Ignorant of available
    services?  Ignorant of what was happening in her own body?  Or was it
    because she *knowingly chose* not to have an abortion.  Only in this
    last case does what you are saying make sense to me.  Otherwise, the
    title of the base note really *is* true - we're really just two-legged
    incubators when it's more convenient for society.
    

I'm reminded of something a sage male co-worker told me once; "Marriage is the
only legal contract you make without getting to read the fine print." I think
he's right, and it's always pissed me off.

But he missed one; pregnancy.

So, I would be against any _implied_ legal contracts. I don't like not knowing
what I'm signing up for.

	Mez

This talk of individual responsability is fine but ignores the last
400 years of history in America.  Mark, have you read "Bury My Heart
At Wounded Knee" by Dee Brown?  I think you would find it very
enlightended to read about the real history of the United States as
told by Native Americans.

Native Americans suffer from a 50% alcholism rate.  The life
expectancy for a Native American on a res is 40 years.  Before we came
to this country, there was no alcholism and life expectancy was high.
There was no pollution, nuclear weapons, and there was a deep respect
for other people and Mother Earth.  Since that time, we have committed
both cultural and real genocide on the Native Americans.  The
population went from 12M to 3M.  Millions were murdered by us or the
Spainairds.  Blankets infected with small pox were given to the
Indians who surrended on the reservations.

We have systematically stolen Native American lands either outright
or thru "treaties".  We have forced Native American to adopt our
religion and culture even though it is easy to see that their was in
fact better.  We have sterilized their women and killed their men.  We
have raped the remaining land they have thru strip mining and uranium
drilling.  We have left the uranium tailing on the land and left the
workers to die.  Native land is still eroding every day.  Native land
claims are ignored even though the courts have found that the treaties
were violated (for example, the Black Hills).  Native fishing and
gaming rights are ignored.  Native income is well under the poverty
limit.  

Meanwhile our children play cowboys and Indians (Its OK to kill
Indians?  How would we react if our kids played Nazis and Jews?   And
we are taught that Native Americans no longer exist or are a quaint
anacronism from the past. The fact is that there are millions of
Native American struggling to survive as a people and struggling to
preserve a way of life that makes sense even as the American goverment
and American business strive to rape and pillage the last of the
Native lands that are needed to survive.

And ignorance and predjudice continue.  Many people still feel that
the best Indian is a dead Indian and that all Indian are drunks.
Indians are murdered and the white perpatrotors are set free. Our
history with Native peoples is a tragic blemish that must be
addressed.  It is a national shame and disgrace and it is still going
on every day.  Traditional Indians fight to preserve their way of life
and deep respect for the land, for spirit, and for each other.  So
called non-traditional Indians take the money for their lands and hope
to join mainstream American soceity.  Those willing to go along
frequently become co-opted with bribes and corruption.

The BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) is responsble for Native Health
programs.  Many feel that they aren't doing enough.  It seems that the
US goverment and many people would just as soon forget the past and
forget the survivors.  I can't.  In fact, I can never respect the
goverment of the United States until we address our treatment and
treaties with Native Americans.  This includes:

  o  Living up to our treaty obligations

  o  Helping traditional Indians be self sustaining

  o  Respecting traditional Indian goverments (the BIA set up
     a system on the reservations that is based on the US system and
     not traditional Native systems which functioned on consensus and
     not on voting and bribes.  Many Natives have never acknowledged
     BIA voting system.  

  o  Learning the respect for Mother Earth that is a primary force
     in Native traditions

  o  Acknowedging our murderous and shameful past.

  o  Restoring lost land thru returning land to Native peoples.

  o  Provide more funding for alchoholism treatment centers and
     education programs on the reservations.
  
I think that in this case you have to look at history and address the
root causes.  

john

    John, Thank you for your note on Native Americans. I would not
    be surprised if Native Americans looked on others objections
    to their attempts to stop the destruction of so many of their
    children by this terrible scourge as complicty in cultural and
    racial genocide.
    
    They may not see this as 'womens rights to control their bodies',
    but only see Euro Americans trying to keep them from saving their
    children and their future.
    
    there are no simple choices in this world.
    
    Bonnie

    	RE: .108
    
    	> I would not be surprised if Native Americans looked on others 
    	> objections to their attempts to stop the destruction of so many 
    	> of their children by this terrible scourge as complicty in 
    	> cultural and racial genocide.
    
    	On the other hand, the Native American woman who made the
    	suggestion about imprisoning pregnant women may well be their
    	version of Phyllis Shafley (or Tammy Faye Bakker.)  We don't 
    	really *know* at this point, do we?
    
    	Throwing alcoholic women in jail simply because they are pregnant 
    	is *not* any kind of answer to this difficult problem, as far as I'm
    	concerned.  
    
    	One of the possible consequences of this practice is that some
    	Native American women could start hiding their pregnancies to avoid
    	possible imprisonment (which would keep growing fetuses from getting
    	proper pre-natal care, if such care is currently available or if
    	it would be available in the future to the women in question.)
    
    	What about the psychological consequences of having a certain portion
    	of a group's Mothers spending their pregnancies in jail?  Women are 
    	not machines that can simply be tossed into "the shop" for repairs
    	(or for preventive maintenance) so that their output product can 
    	pass someone's standards for quality assurance.  The psychological
    	consequences for the women (*and* their families) could be lasting 
    	and devastating.
    	
    	How do you think some Mothers will feel about their infants if
    	their pregnancies led directly to their suffering the humiliation of
    	being treated like convicted criminals?  I wonder about that.
    
    	Don't get me wrong, though.
    
    	*Everything possible* should be done to help these women to keep 
    	from hurting their future children with alcohol during pregnancy. 
    
    	Imprisonment is not the answer, IMO.  Aside from the serious
    	affront to women's rights that would be involved, it violates the
    	individual women's rights as HUMANS. There *has* to be a better way.

In 1854 Chief Seattle of the Puget Sound Indians was asked to sell a
large area of land in what is now Washington state.  He and his people
were also promised a reservation by President Franklin Pierce.  Here
is Chief Seattle's reply, one of the most beautiful statements on the
environment ever made.

<< Keep in mind this was written in 1854 >>

------------

How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land?  The idea is
strange to us.  If we do not own the freshness of the air and the
sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?

Every part of the earth is sacred to my people.  Every shining pine needle,
every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing, and
humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people.  The
sap which courses through the trees carries the memories of the red man.

The white man's dead forget the country of their birth when they go to
walk among the stars.  Our dead never forget this beautiful earth, for
it is the mother of the red man.  We are a part of the earth and it is
a part of us.  The perfumed flowers are our sisters; the deer, the
horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers.  The rocky crests,
the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and the man - all
belong to the same family.

So, when the Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy
our land, he asks much of us.  The Great Chief in Washington will
reserve us a place so that we can live comfortably to ourselves.  He will
be our father and we will be his children.  So we will consider your
offer to buy our land.  But it will not be easy.  For this land is
sacred to us.

This shining water that moves in the streams and the rivers is not just
water but the blood of our ancestors.  If we sell you land, you must
remember that it is sacred, and you must teach your children that it is
sacred and that each ghastly reflection in the clear water of the lakes
tells of events and memories in the life of my people.  The water's
murmur is the voice of my father's father.

The rivers are our brothers, they quench our thirst.  The rivers carry
our canoes, and feed our children.  If we sell you our land, you must
remember, and teach your children, that the rivers are our brothers, and
yours, and you must henceforth give the rivers the kindness you would
give any brother.

We know that the white man does not understand our ways.  One portion
of land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes
in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs.  The earth is
not his brother but his enemy, and when he has conquered it, he moves on.
He leaves his fathers' graves and his children's birthright forgotten.
He treats his mother, the earth, and his brother, the sky, as things to
be bought, plundered, sold like sheep or bright beads.  His appetite
will devour the earth and leave behind only desert.

I do not know.  Our ways are different from your ways.  The sight of your
cities pains the eye of the red man.  But perhaps it is because the red
man is savage and does not understand.

There is no quiet place in the white man's cities.  No place to hear the
unfurling of leaves in spring, or the rustle of an insect's wings.  But
perhaps it is because I am savage and do not understand.  The clatter
only seems to insult the ears.  And what is there to life if a man
cannot hear the lonely cry of the whippoorwill or the arguments of the
frogs around a pond at night?  I am a red man and do not understand.
The Indian prefers the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of
a pond, and the smell of the wind itself, cleansed by the rain or
scented with the pine cone.

The air is precious to the red man, for all things share the same
breath: the beast, the tree, the man, they all share the same breath.
The white men, they all share the same breath.  The white man does
not seem to notice the air he breathes.  Like a man dying for many
days, he is numb to the stench.  But if we sell you our land, you must
remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its
spirit with all the life it supports.  The wind that gave our
grandfather his first breath also received his last sigh.  And if we
sell you our land you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where
even the white man can go and taste the wind that is sweetened by the
meadow's flowers.

So we wil consider your offer to buy our land.  If we decide to accept
I will make one condition.  The white man must treat the beasts of this
land as his brothers.

I am savage and do not understand any other way.  I have seen a thousand
rotting buffaloes on the prairie, left by the white man who shot them
from a passing train.  I am savage and do not understand how the smoking
iron horse can be more important than the buffalo that we kill only to
stay alive.

What is man without the beasts?  If all the beasts were gone, man would
die from a great loneliness of the spirit.  For whatever happens to the
beasts, soon happens to man.  All things are connected.

You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the
ashes of our grandfathers.  So that they will respect our land, tell
your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin.  Teach
your children what we have taught our children, that the earth is our
mother.  Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth.
Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it.
Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

Even the white man, whose God walks and talks with him as a friend to
friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny.  We may be brothers
after all.  We shall see.  One thing we know, which the white man may
one day discover - our God is the same God.  You may think now that you
own Him as you wish to own our land; but you cannot.  He is the God of man
and his compassion is equal for the red man and the white.  The earth is
precious to him, and to harm the earth is to heap contempt upon its Creator.
The whites, too, shall pass; perhaps sooner than all other tribes.
Contaminate your bed, and you will one night suffocate in your own waste.

But in your perishing, you will shine brightly, fired by the strength
of the God who brought you to this land and for some special purpose
gave you dominion over the red man.  That destiny is a mystery to us,
for we do not understand when the buffalo are slaughtered, the wild
horses are tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with the
scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills blotted out by
talking wires.  Where is the thicket?  Gone.  Where is the eagle?  Gone.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

In the end, they named a city after him on the land he could not own.

Some backround reading suggestions for those interesting in learning
more.

Cry, Sacred Ground - Parlow

The tragic story of the relocation of Navajo's in the Hopi/Navajo
joint use area.

The Wampanoags Of Mashpee - Russell

The story of the tribe that helped the pilgrims only to have all their
land stolen.

Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee - Dee Brown

A great history of America written from the native point of views.
Based on records of Native American found in treaty records, etc.
Very powerful - a real eye opener.

God Is Red - Vine Deloria

Discussion of Indian religion and traditional and politics.
Discussion of how Indian religion compares to Christianity and the
history of the later.

Custer Died For Your Sins - Vine Deloria

Discussion of Indian political issues.

Akwesasne Notes

Newpaper from the Mohawk nation covering current events in Native
life.

Enough Is Enough - Aboriganal Women Speak Out

Feminist.  Account of the fight of Canadian Indian Women to restore
the rights and equality under the Canadian law.

The Spirit and the Flesh - Williams

Covers acceptance of sexual diversity in Native tradition especially
the Burdache tradition.

Indian Country - Mathieson

Covers the continuing conflicts between US corparations and
traditional Native Americans who want to save our planet.

A Gathering of Spirit - Beth Brant

Feminist.  Excellent collection of poems, essays, and stories from
Native American women.

Rolling Thunder - Dennis Boyd

Story of Rolling Thunder - a medicine man.

Black Elk Speaks - Neilhardt

Classic work from Black Elk - Siuox Medicine Man.

Lame Deer - Seeker of Visions - John (Fire) Lame Deer

Another classic Medicine Man story.

    And if you'd like another example of how we make it all work, just
    read the "History of Harvard Square" placards on the walls of the
    tube station there.  They talk about how "by 1830 the Indian
    presence was all but vanished from the banks of the Charles".  As
    though it were just a natural phenomenon, unconnected with the white
    invasion.                            
    
                                                 =maggie

    re: .109
    
    >    Women are not machines that can simply be tossed into "the
    >    shop" for repairs (or for preventive maintenance) so that 
    >    their output product can pass someone's standards for 
    >    quality assurance.  
    
    As a currently pregnant woman, something about this whole
    discussion has bothered me all along, and Suzanne has put her
    finger on at least part of it.  
    
    I'm a conscientious person who's getting good prenatal care,
    getting the bejeebers stabbed out of her blood vessels for tests
    to make sure everything's going okay -- "Just to be on the safe
    side," because I'm 35 now.  Never mind that I've already had two
    perfectly healthy normal kids without any trouble, the odds have
    gone down just because the years have gone by.  That's all right,
    I want to do my best to have another healthy happy baby, and John
    Hancock's paying for most of it.  I follow doctor's orders, not
    always without complaining, and try to read and ask questions so I
    understand what's going on.
    
    And the first thing that bothers me is that with the exception of
    a few well-documented problems like babies of cocaine-addicted
    mothers being addicted to cocaine, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, and so
    on, the rest of the things you should avoid, should be careful
    about, etc. etc. etc., are guesswork.  Not all medical authorities
    accept the existence of the impaired judgement, etc. in children
    of alcoholic mothers that Bonnie R. referred to.  Caffeine, which
    hasn't been implicated or cleared yet, gets lumped in along with
    alcohol and illicit drugs as something you shouldn't do.  Stay out
    of hot tubs because there's some evidence that the heat can cause
    problems, get some exercise but not too much, keep on working but
    don't spend too much time at your CRT because those haven't been
    cleared, either -- oh, and why don't you have your feet up?
    
    Whose baby is this, anyway?  
    
    I can see some case for intervention in clear cases where the
    mother is doing something that is going to damage the baby (though
    even Fetal Alcohol Syndrome isn't a certainty; depending on whose
    numbers you believe, up to half, maybe more, of babies born to
    heavily drinking mothers are normal).  But what about all this "to
    be on the safe side" business?  That's the same argument "they"
    used to keep our grandmothers from getting enough exercise and to
    keep them in bed for a week after the delivery.  
    
    At what point does the risk justify the restriction on the mother? 
    Gabriele Andersen and Evelyn Ashford raced competitively several
    times after they were pregnant, something that's not recommended
    for the average pregnant mother.  Some doctors say that since they
    were already at competitive level, there was no danger, but others
    say that even though they had healthy babies, they definitely
    increased the chance that they would have miscarried or had other
    problems.  If we're going to get into judging the mother's
    conduct, who gets to decide when the doctors disagree?
    
    And what kind of defects are we talking about?  Spina bifida is
    clearly a physical problem, but does "impaired self-control"
    identify a real problem, or does it mean that the kid is less
    likely to behave like a white middle class male and more likely to
    choose a less structured lifestyle?  I don't know, it might be as
    clear and definite as spina bifida, but I have to wonder. 
    
    It seems like there's some vague group of doctors and medical
    writers who are setting this "quality standard" for the output of
    our bodies, who decide what makes a "normal" baby and a "normal"
    pregnancy, who then decide what makes a "normal" course of
    childhood development.  Never mind that all this "normal" stuff
    leaves out alternate patterns for the developing children and
    don't take into account that some kids like science while others
    like drawing.  It wouldn't surprise me to learn that a normal
    five-year-old who likes art and has a creative imagination, who is
    a bit impulsive and maybe a little less advanced in his ability to
    deal with other kids, who gets bored with writing the letter "C"
    over and over again and starts to draw on his paper, is getting
    classified as lacking impulse control if he happens to be a lower
    class or minority child.  
    
    I don't usually say things like this.  I don't usually go for
    theories of middle-class malice towards the poor.  But in this I
    have to wonder, I really wonder.
    
    --bonnie

    Bonnie,
    
    Don't take any aspirin, either.
    
    							Ann B.  :-)

   
     
    >>If a woman didn't want to be pregnant, but was not able to get an
    >>abortion, I believe she still has a responsibility not to harm
    >>the developing embryo.
    
    >Responsibility without any rights?  They go hand-in-hand.
    >Either you have both or neither.  I do very strongly believe that.
    
    and if we are not given the rights does that absolve us of
    all responsibility? I don't think so. I think that we are
    responsible for our interactions with others no matter what
    'rights' we are given. To think otherwise, to me is to
    justify all sorts of cruelty in places like concentration
    camps where our rights are taken away. It is just where
    we have nothing and we choose to still act with responsibility
    towards others that the choices are the most difficult, and
    often lead to the greatest of hope for all of humanity.
    To choose to make a moral choice in the face of immorality, in
    the face of no personal choice, can be the highest form of
    morality.

    >"not able to get an abortion" is also unclear.  Is that because someone
    >stopped her from exercising her *constitutional* rights?  Because she
    >was ignorant of her constitutional rights?  Ignorant of available
    >services?  Ignorant of what was happening in her own body?  Or was it
    >because she *knowingly chose* not to have an abortion.  Only in this
    >last case does what you are saying make sense to me.  Otherwise, the
    >title of the base note really *is* true - we're really just two-legged
    >incubators when it's more convenient for society.
    
    I do not feel that any of these circumstances are a valid 
    reason or a legitimate excuse for a woman to deliberately 
    choose to embrace a behavior that damages the child she is 
    carrying. All the political rightness in the world does not 
    make it right to chose to damage another individual. If the alter-
    native, is to spend time as a two 'legged incubator' *not*
    for society's convenience, but because that means the health
    and well being of *another person*, than that is a sacrifice
    that is worth making. I think that there are reasons and
    occasions when the individual should put themself second
    for the good of others. Without such altruism, I believe
    society ultimately will fail.

    There are times in our lives when we find ourselves putting our
    own needs and wishes second in response to the greater needs
    of another. We may be called on to rise above our own personal
    benefit/good to care for another person who needs us or is
    helpless and depends on us. This could be a parent who has
    Alzenheimers, a relative or friend who is dying from a terminal
    disease, a cry from help from a community disastered by disease
    or natural calamity. This could be the simple need of a stranger
    in an accident that we encounter on the highway, or a dear friend
    who has been devistated by personal tragedy. But we respond
    to the need, we reach out, we put ourselves second, we help those
    in need. This kind of response is found among animals. I've read
    stories of dogs and cats that acted to 'mother' or 'nurse' other
    animals or people, but I think this ability, to care, to succor
    to give aid to the helpless, is in its fullest expression a
    uniquely human expression, and one that is one of our crowning
    achievements as a species.

    Pregnancy for a woman is a time when we most uniquely and most
    intimately encounter this experience. We have another's life
    and future wellbeing uniquely under our control. We are then
    totally responsible in what we eat, in how we take care of our
    selves, for the future health and wellbeing of another individual.
    The developing embryo/fetus is a very fragile structure. Very
    small things, that would not harm a baby, much less a child
    or adult will seriously damage the development in utero. This
    is a very complex time biochemically, genetically, developmenatally,
    many things that we ordinarilly find inoccuous or a question of
    personal choice, like taking asprin, or a drinking, can
    potentially cause damage.    

    For a woman to be pregnant against her will is a terrible tragedy.
    For her, in turn, to damage the child she carries by choice or
    by ignorance, is a further and a greater tragedy. For the woman
    will suffer through nine months of an unwanted pregnancy but
    the fetus/embryo/child will suffer an entire life of handicap
    or retardation because of that damage.

    The above is one of the main reasons that I am pro-choice. If 
    women are denied abortions the cost in damaged children from
    failed self-induced abortions and from maternal neglect during
    pregnancy will be very very high.

    I also believe that the damage, psychically to women of such
    actions will also be high. I believe that any woman who bears
    a child who is defective as a result of actions that she could
    have prevented will be deeply psychically damaged/pained. I have
    talked to women who have born handicaped children as a result
    of genetic problems or chemical or other insults that they had
    no control over. I've listened to their pain and their second
    guessing about how they might have done things differently. I've
    even had occasion for concern over my 'home grown' son, since
    he was exposed to German measles at two months in utero. and I
    wonder if he really did escape 'scott free'. I find it very hard
    to imagine that most women who give birth to a child that is
    some how damaged as a result of something that they did or
    didn't do *by choice* during pregnancy, will not experience deep 
    personal angst and pain. 

   I don't feel that there is *any* justification for a deliberate
   choice to not support or 'first do no harm to' a child in utero.
   The pain and loss of freedom involved in giving 9 months to another 
   human being, especially if it is not wanted (here assuming that for any 
   reason an abortion is not available), is great. I feel however that
   if the alternative is  child that will be handicapped all their 
   life because one chose not to exercise reasonable, healthy precautions 
   that were in their reach during pregnancy, then the needs of the
   child should be put first during that time. Again,this means, in so 
   far as such precautions are available to the woman, and she has 
   a chance to be educated in them. 

   My 14 year old son, as I mentioned before is mildly retarded
   and physically handicapped because of an 'fetal insult'. I 
   don't want any increase in such children being born!
   One life that cannot fufill its potential is already too many,
   and Stevie is only one of many. If women only look at the
   developing fetus /embryo as an invasion on their rights to do
   as they personally wish with their own bodies, having chosen
   to bear the child or by ill chance  not having been able to
   obtain an abortion, then more 'Stevies' will be born.
   
   Let us:

   Work for prenatal and post natal care
   Work for freedom of choice and freedom of access to birth control
   Work for better child and maternal health programs
   Work for women to be able to make responsible, informed choices about
   prenatal care
   But let us not dismiss the need for individual intervention in the
   lives of specific women at risk because of needs not met before
   they became pregnant.
   Let us not sacrifice the child's right to development free of
   chemicals that interfere with its growth on the altar of freedom
   for women.


   Bonnie
    

 Wow.

    Thank you, Bonnie Reinke. You are a very beautiful person.

    <--(.115)
    
    Bonnie, it's notes like yours that remind me why the world is still
    intact, despite the Hitlers, the Mansons and the Ivan Boeskys in it.
    
    
    
    But should higher ethics and morality be enforced at law?  Whose
    ethics, in the case of disagreement?  And how do we enforce ethical
    standards with those whose behaviors blight the lives of _many_?  Or do
    we just coerce the ethical behavior of poor women?

    re: .114
    
    Right. 
    
    And avoid sugar, which can trigger gestational diabetes -- no
    regular soft drinks.  Oh, and also avoid soft drinks and such
    which contain aspartame, since there's some evidence that it's not
    good for babies.  We already knew caffeine was out, but did you
    know herbal teas are out, too, since so many of them contain herbs
    that are known abortificants? Obviously no alcoholic drinks.  Stay
    away from apple juice because of the chemicals, and don't drink
    too much fruit juice anyway because even unsweetened fruit juice
    contains fruit sugar.
    
    I'm becoming awfully fond of Nashua water.
    
    --bonnie

    From reading this entire string I'm getting the distinct impression
    that "society", (whoever is for "restraining" pregnant women), is
    beginning to look at pregnant women as if they are all potential
    maniacs, willing to abort on Friday if they get a hot date for
    Saturday, wanting to drink and party 'till they drop.  This is
    completely absurd!
    
    I truly believe that the majority of women in our culture make love in
    good faith with men they love.  They are not frivolous, wayward sluts.
    I also believe that the majority of women who get pregnant
    *automatically*, by design, want what's best for their unborn.  If women
    were not genetically predisposed to genuine caring for the health and
    well-being of their offspring, we would have died out a long time ago.
    Think about it.
    
    Their is variation in ALL of nature, and human females are no
    exception.  Some animals are terrible mothers.  Some even devour their
    living young.  Lemmings commit mass suicide every 7 years or so.  Thorn
    birds impale themselves to death on thorns.  Wolves pack and single out
    young animals and tear them apart.  Men war and kill healthy young men.
    I could go on, but you get the picture.
    
    It is true that there are "wayward" pregnant women.  Were we all
    professed to be perfect, I for one wouldn't believe it.  What bothers
    me is that the natural variation that exists in ALL of life is being
    used as evidence to support the *restraint*, (imprisonment!) of the 
    majority of women who are FAR more concerned with life, health and 
    well-being than the world-at-large, (which includes men and thorn birds,
    et al).
    
    That this one natural variation of life is in such sharp focus these
    days makes me suspicious.  No one has mentioned that men should have
    their sperm "protected" or their work habits "protected" lest they
    loose their jobs and lower the quality of life for their children.
    If it's the children "society" is concerned with, they have
    conveniently forgotten about the male contribution.  
    
    There is much that needs to be improved in this world.  But I believe
    society is betraying its true motives when it chooses to focus on the
    one sub-group that is MORE concerned with life and well-being than any
    other in existence.  You can't keep the lemmings from the sea and you
    won't keep "deviant" women from existing.  Even to entertain the idea
    of some kind of blanket restraint on all pregnant women because of the
    natural variation of life is to insult the life-giving love of all 
    womankind.  Que sera, sera sounds like a cold attitude, but it's the
    attitude "society" has had up until the past few decades and women have 
    managed to over-populate the world with predominantly healthy babies.
    
    This whole idea makes me barf.
    
    

I may have received a biased impression of the lines of discussion in this
topic; but I have not gotten the impression that "society" (or even very 
many individuals) are supporting the "*restraint* (imprisonment!) of the 
majority of [pregnant] women".  

Have I missed something?  Has there been discussion here that should have 
given me the impression that anyone is entertaining "the idea of some kind 
of blanket restraint on all pregnant women"?

	-Neil

    Re .120, I really love your note.
    
    I was beginning to feel like barfing myself.
    
    Lorna
    
    P.S.  reading this entire string has given me the impression that
    embryos are starting to be more important than people who have already
    been born...  (maybe it's easy to have compassion for somebody who
    hasn't had a chance to disagree with you yet)
    

    Embryos and fetuses ARE starting to be more important than people
    and my belief is that it's because the opposite, (women with full
    reproductive control), is so frightening to a society which was
    formed around the idea that women would not have such control.
    
    Yes indeed, such a society will be changed if one of its basic
    premises no longer exists.  I agree with that.  I just don't think
    the change will be a bad one.  Male-dominated American society is NOT
    the only way possible for humans to live.  Might not even be the best
    way.  Many women feel it's simply not a very good way at all!
    
    I believe society is attempting to legislate and enforce patriarchy and 
    the status-quo.  Female reproductive choice is at the heart of it -
    hense the current hysteria over female reproductive options.

    Don't get me wrong.  I love my mother.  But I found it really curious
    that when we were talking this weekend, and a male friend was in
    the room, she jibingly mentioned that I shouldn't be jealous of
    his-ability-to-such-and-such because *I* could *make babies*.  I
    was talking with this male friend quietly later on, and he shared
    with me that many women he had spoken to thought this *special ability*
    (which is, indeed, special - I do not jest when I say that), is
    more of a liability in many women's lives that he knows, than an
    asset.  I agreed that it seemed that way for me right now, too.
    This gift is wonderful, when a child is desired.  This gift seems
    a curse when one is not.
    
    -Jody
    

RE: .115

Wonderful note, Bonnie.

    This is  a  good statement of a religious (or moral) position. You
    describe  the  behaviour  one wishes for from everyone. I have two
    minor  problems  with  it.  One  is  that  one  can  wish for such
    responsibility,  and consider it praiseworthy, but requiring it is
    more  difficult.  The  second  is  the  question  of  deliberately
    damaging the child. I'm not sure that an alcoholic (or someone who
    had  FAS)  is  fully  capable  of  deliberate  actions about usign
    alcohol.

--David

    There seem to be two points of view here, expressed fully and
    eloquently (recently) in .113 and .115:
    
    	o  preserve the right to control our bodies.
    		--Who is to decide what is "safe" for the baby?
    		--The government?  The courts?  The welfare system?
    		  Insurance agencies?  Dan Quayle?
    		--Why should being pregnant mean you're no longer a
    		  free citizen?
    
    	o  save the child at all costs.
    		--Why perpetuate the cycle of deprivation when we can 
    		  intervene?
    		--Don't make the child pay for the rest of its life
    		  for choices its mother made.
    		--Pregnancy carries responsibility.
    
    There's validity on both sides. 
    
    My personal vote is:  don't weaken our reproductive freedom.  It's like
    a trademark -- if it starts to slip into "public domain" you lose
    control over it.  Corollary:  don't tie our rights as free citizens to
    the menstrual cycle (or lack thereof).  
    
    I think a lot of people who suggest action #2 are assuming that it
    wouldn't ever apply to them.  But ten years ago, who had heard of
    million dollar palimony suits?  Ten years ago, who had heard of a
    potential father suing a potential mother for having an abortion
    without his consent?  Strange things happen when the courts get
    involved in private lives.
    
    My ethical response to this question is that there is a real, complex
    social problem here that needs to be addressed with OFFERS of help, not
    involuntary incarceration, however well-intentioned.  Perhaps the woman
    who suggested it in the first place was trying to stir up controversy
    in the hopes that something useful would emerge.

    RE .115
    
    Bonnie has/is been there with her son. Like the death of a child,
    unless you personally have been there, you will never truly know.
    You will wonder what the future will bring for your child when you
    are old and unable to give that special care and understanding the
    the rest of the world will not.
    
    RE .126
    
    You have stated the two positions (though what did Dan Quayle do
    to you?). There is one thing that you and some others may have missed.
    The gene pool for these indians is somewhat limited. Unlike the
    rest of a large country, if you don't leave the reservation, you
    tend to breed with your own kind (IMHO). If you don't, then the
    indian culture and traits will die out.
    
    A tough question for all concerned. But to say ME ME ME is not a
    total solution or defense.
    
    Steve_who_is_part_American_Indian

    When one of sisters-in-law was pregnant I couldn't help but notice
    that she never gave up smoking and still had the occasional alcoholic
    drink.  The only person who ever questioned her about this was her
    mother, whom she is used to ignoring (since her mother is an extremely
    talkative Italian lady in her 60's who never even went to high school).
     My sister-in-law, however, graduated from college and has been
    working as a social worker ever since.  It did annoy me that she
    kept smoking and drinking socially.  I felt she should have known
    better and wondered if she hadn't heard of the fears expressed about
    pregnant women drinking and smoking.  However, she is an extremely
    confident, popular, well-liked, and goodlooking woman, with a college 
    degree (which I don't have) and who works with retarded children on 
    a daily basis (even deciding what programs they should be assigned to 
    and if state aid should be given).  I didn't feel, at the time,
    that it was my place to question her about smoking and drinking,
    and felt that I would definitely be nicely told it was none of my
    business, so I didn't say anything to her.  (I did however discuss
    it behind her back with a few other relatives.)  The general consensus
    seemed to be that she knows what she's doing.  She's a successful
    person.  (Heck, she was even queen of her senior prom back in h.s.
    That's the kind of personal history she has.)  Well, her baby was
    born pre-mature and just barely made it.  It was never suggested
    that it could have anything to do with smoking, and I don't know
    if it did or not, but it did occur to me.  Now, the baby is a perfectly
    happy and healthy two year old.  I wonder if some people here think
    she should have been put in jail, or was it her own business what
    she chose to do.  She is white and a college graduate, and she isn't
    an alcoholic, by any means.  It's just that I thought it was really
    better to not take chances by smoking or drinking *at all* during
    pregnancy.  She felt differently.  Was this her right, or should
    she have been *forced* to stop drinking occasionally and smoking?
    
    Lorna
     

Let's consider the use of children's and infants' car seats for a moment:

	Using them is a bother.

	The great majority of parents who don't use them will never have 
	occasion to regret their negligence.

	Some parents may honestly regard them as unnecessary, or even
	undesirable.

	Mandating their use may be seen as an infringement on the rights of 
	parents to use their own judgment about what is best for their children.

	They save lives.

Is there a useful analogy here to some of the "might make a difference" aspects
of a pregnant woman's behaviour?

(I'll be the first to observe that the degree of invasiveness associated 
with the control of prenatal behaviour is qualitatively different from the 
relatively minor inconvenience of putting one's child in a car seat.)

	-Neil

    What is more detremental: a woman being sober for 9 months or a
    baby being born retarded? I agree with you 100%, Bonnie. 
    
    Many years ago,society assumed parents owned their children. They
    beat them and even sexually abused them with little socialinterven-
    tion. People killed baby girls but that was their business. Person-
    al freedom for the parent was the omnipotant force. But than we
    became civilized. I, as Bonnie, believe in choice because of the
    children. 
    
    By the way, the title of this note amuses me. I, as a proud mother,
    was a two legged incubator. (TWICE) That's the fact. To diminish
    the responsibility of motherhood in order to promote equality is
    repulsive to me.
    
    Kate (two legs and all)
    
    
    
    

    re .129 (and .130):
    
>Is there a useful analogy here to some of the "might make a difference" aspects
>of a pregnant woman's behaviour?

>(I'll be the first to observe that the degree of invasiveness associated 
>with the control of prenatal behaviour is qualitatively different from the 
>relatively minor inconvenience of putting one's child in a car seat.)

    There is a *huge* difference in legislating what should and should not
    be done concerning an already born child, and what a pregnant woman
    should and should not do during pregnancy of an unborn child.  In the
    first case, there is not the care and concern of another person's body
    (albeit only a *woman's* body) involved at all, only the child's.
    
    Whose body is it?  *Mine* or *society's*?!  What an incredible invasion
    of privacy!  Doesn't that *outrage* you?! (the collective you, I'm not
    addressing one particular person) It should!
    
    That said, the key word in the above paragraph is *legislate*, nothing
    more.  It says nothing about what is ethically correct or not.
    That is a separate issue, and I believe what Bonnie was talking about.
    

    Doesn't the base situation remind anyone else of the Monty Python
    skit in which John Cleese (?) finds himself on trial for "actions
    not usually considered illegal"?
    
    						Ann B.

    The thing that really bother me about this situation is that,
    as some have stated, the *fetus* (no, not the *child* - I'll
    get to that in a minute) is more important than the real, live
    woman who's pregnant.
    
    First, the *child* is unimportant here, since as soon as it's born
    it will be raised by an alcoholic and (almost totally?) dysfunctional
    parent. (parents?) The *child* IS going to be damaged. That's a given.
    But there are no concerns, no "solutions" to *this* problem.
    
    Secondly, if the *mother* were the important person here, then
    *PREVENTION* would be the watchword. The entire problem goes away
    if the focus is on the women, and providing them the services they
    need to function properly. IF the priority were the *women*, there
    would be support services for them as ...what? kids? teens?
    But no. The focus is on each individual fetus that each individual
    woman carries, every time each single woman gets pregnant. Again.
    And again. And again.
    
    The solution is not to incarcerate women, not to create more
    dysfunctional families, but to create the kind of supportive atmosphere
    that these women need in order to birth healthy babies and RAISE
    healthy children. 
    
    It really bothers me that the focus is on the fetus and not the mother.
    
    --DE
    

    re: .133
    
    Yay, Dawn.
    
    

This is a reply from a member of the community who would like to remain
anonymous as this time.
	Mez

***************************************************************************

When someone mentioned "fetal insult" from the perspective of having adopted
a child who had experienced this (and who now advocates putting pregnant
women in jail as a way of preventing more fetal insults,) it caught my eye
because I am a child who was seriously damaged by such a fetal insult
(because of something my mother did during her pregnancy with me.)  I, too,
have "been there."

My parents decided to travel to a foreign country when my mother was
pregnant with me, and with full doctor's approval, my mother took several
overseas vaccinations that made her deathly ill with a high fever for a
number of days during the 4th month of pregnancy with me.  When I was born,
I had serious, crippling orthopedic problems with my feet and legs that
turned my entire childhood into a never-ending bout with hospitals, painful
operations and extensive treatments to help me to walk.  By my teen years,
I was able to walk, dance, ice skate, and roller skate like everyone else
(and without the trace of a limp.)  It was a great victory for all of us.

I suppose I always knew, somehow, that it would be temporary in the long
run becuase of the drastic nature of what they did to make it happen.
Three years ago, at the age of 35, my suspicions were confirmed when a
doctor informed me that my condition is on a slow decline, and that I am
on the road to losing the ability to walk.  With the saddest expression I
have ever seen on an orthopedic surgeon's face, he told me that there's nothing
that can be done about it.  It's simply a matter of a few years from right
now, and there's no way to know exactly when it will happen.

Had my mother been jailed during her pregnancy with me, none of this ever
would have happened, of course.  My childhood would have been very different,
and I wouldn't be facing the inevitablity of living my older years in a
wheelchair.

However, if someone could turn back the clock and change my life by putting
my mother in jail during her pregnancy with me, would I allow it to happen?
No, I would not.

I would not trade my problems in exchange for having my mother treated as
though she were subhuman because she had the ability to carry me in her
womb.  I would not allow her to be treated like a criminal to keep me from
being hurt by the ignorance of medicine that existed in the year I was born.

As a child who was damaged in my mother's womb, I am insulted and outraged
that someone could suggest that women like my mother are nothing more than
two-legged incubators.  Unfair imprisonment is not a small price to pay,
and I think it is outrageous for someone to recommend it for other women as
though women somehow deserve this kind of treatment for having the ability
to bear children inside our bodies.

Women should be helped to have healthy babies, but they don't belong in jail
as a way to force this to happen.  

Just an opinion from someone who has "been there," too.

You can *NOT* grant rights to one by taking away the rights of others
(I will not argue if the fetus is human or not here) It is this type
of social engineering that has caused many of the problems in the world.

if you extend that to the situation of giving rights to a non-human over
the rights of an already existing(though admitedly apparently impaired)
human it becomes a very easy step to incarceration of large segments of 
the public on the whim of the politicians. Hitler didn't start with a
large group(the Jews) he started eliminating the smallest minorities
(the size of native-american groups/tribes). That, of course, sounds 
paranoid, and I know I am paranoid but am I paranoid enough?

INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS cannot be given away by government order to benefit
others. there must be other solutions found to these crisis before the
situations arise but if that is not done it is still wrong to violate
that womans freedom.

Amos
(hate-mail will be considered and read ;-})

RE: .135

    I think  your  first paragraph is putting words in Bonnie's mouth.
    She  didn't (as far as I can tell) advocate putting pregnant women
    in  jail.  She  argued  that  women who don't want to take care of
    themselves  during  pregnancy  should  have  the  right to have an
    abortion,  and  if  they  couldn't  get  an  abortion, the morally
    correct,  praiseworthy thing to do is to take whatever precautions
    will  give  the  child the best chance of growing up "normal". She
    did not argue for legal enforcement of this moral obligation.

--David

 What I am getting from this discussion is that women may do whatever they
want no matter what impact it has to unborn children. The fact that they
are unborn alone is enough to prevent any consideration whatever from being
given to the fetus. If the mother wants to drink herself into oblivion each 
night, society may do nothing whatever to stop her. the fetus deserves no
protection at all from a malicious or negligent mother because it interferes
with her rights of freedom. 5 minutes after birth, the continued actions of
the mother (that were perfectly acceptable before birth) are suddenly grounds
to have the child taken from the woman's custody. (This is ignoring that
negligence must actually occur over time to really be grounds.) Why is it
suddenly not ok for the woman to be negligent? Simply because the child has
been born?

>    First, the *child* is unimportant here, since as soon as it's born
>    it will be raised by an alcoholic and (almost totally?) dysfunctional
>    parent. (parents?) The *child* IS going to be damaged. That's a given.
>    But there are no concerns, no "solutions" to *this* problem.

 The difference is that a parent that is alcoholic/dysfunctional after birth
can be treated while the baby is being cared for by another, and can assume
parental responsibilities at a later time without negative physical impact to 
the child. Before birth, nobody can take over mothering for her.

 And it's a bald faced lie to claim that there is no concern over the problem
of alcoholic/dysfunctional parenthood. One could make a case that not enough
is being done, but it is a distortion to say that nothing is.

>The entire problem goes away
>    if the focus is on the women, and providing them the services they
>    need to function properly.

 Have you ever heard the saying "you can lead a horse to water but you can't
make it drink?" It applies here. Providing assistance for alcoholics does
certainly NOT guarantee the end of alcoholism. And who is supposed to provide
the services? Is there no responsibility at all on the mother?

>    The solution is not to incarcerate women, not to create more
>    dysfunctional families, but to create the kind of supportive atmosphere
>    that these women need in order to birth healthy babies and RAISE
>    healthy children. 

 Please explain who is supposed to create this environment and it is their
responsibility and not someone else's.

 The Doctah

    	RE: .137  David Wittenberg
    
    	> [Bonnie Reinke] argued  that  women who don't want to take care of
    	> themselves  during  pregnancy  should  have  the  right to have 
    	> an abortion,  and  if  they  couldn't  get  an  abortion, the morally
    	> correct,  praiseworthy thing to do is to take whatever precautions
    	> will  give  the  child the best chance of growing up "normal". She
    	> did not argue for legal enforcement of this moral obligation.
    
    	Great.  It comes as a tremendous relief to me to discover that
    	Bonnie is *not* advocating the involuntary imprisonment of
    	alcoholic Native American pregnant women after all.
    
    	However, now I wonder what we're all arguing about here if the
    	imprisonment of such women is *not* what she has been advocating. 
    
    	Obviously, we would *all* agree that a Mother has a strong moral
    	obligation to take the best possible care of herself and the fetus
    	during pregnancy.  My impression was that we were discussing
    	whether or not a society has the right to legally *enforce* this
    	obligation by throwing pregnant women in jail if they fail to live
    	up to what society considers to be the proper way of accomplishing
    	such "proper care."

    re: .139 (Suzanne)
    
    � My impression was that we were discussing whether or not a society 
    � has the right to legally *enforce* this obligation [to the unborn's
    � health] by throwing pregnant women in jail. . .
    
    I have a slightly different impression, though this may be the
    result of a semantic differentiation that I (alone) am making.
    So far, I've seen nobody here advocating jail, but I have seen
    suggestions for commitment to some sort of theraputic environment.
    From my experience, there's a world of difference between the two.
    
    As someone (Kate?) suggested, perhaps it wouldn't be such a terrible
    thing if an alcohol (or heroin, or cocaine) addicted mother were
    to be in a treatment center, if not for the entire pregnancy, then
    perhaps for some part of it.  Consider that if an individual is
    convicted of drunk driving in this state (and several others), (s)he
    may be required by the courts to go through a program aimed at 
    education and rehabilitation and also may be required to go to a
    number of AA meetings.  And there are cases where voluntary
    commmittment to a treatment center is given as an alternative to
    a jail sentence.  A number of such individuals have expressed
    the feelings that while they (emphatically) didn't want to be
    there when they started, they became very grateful that they 
    got into a program that saved their lives.
                                              
    All in all, I don't think anyone here is advocating imprisonment
    for an addicted mother.  What I think some have raised is the
    notion of some sort of intervention into a troubled situation.
    It seems to me that no matter which way we slice it, there's a
    great deal of human suffering here and I suspect the overall question
    is, "What can/should we do about this?"  
    
    Steve

    I think Bonnie got caught in the middle because of the power and
    passion in her statement, Suzanne.
    
    Re-reading it (as I'm doing) it's clear that in fact Bonnie was arguing
    that *the woman* should do all in her power to ensure the well-being of
    the foetus *as a matter of simple ethics*.  Nowhere does she say--or
    even imply, I think--that the state has the right to compel her to do
    so.
    
    Nonetheless, that is indeed the question we're discussing.  Those of us
    who argue against such control need to target an actual advocate of the
    pro-control position.  I suggest The Doctah since he hasn't had a good
    drubbing in awhile ;')
    
    						=maggie

    re .138, "Doctah"
    
    Do you or do you not advocate the imprisonment or other type of 
    incarceration (including mandatory treatment of any kind) of women
    during pregnancy if they are alcoholic or drunkards?  Enough of your
    smokescreens.  Please answer the question - yes or no?  Otherwise,
    I (and presumably others) don't know what you're yelling so loudly
    about.
    

    I think that a pregnant woman should ask herself "Do I
    want to have a healthy baby ?" If yes, than act accordingly.
    If not, then abort the foetus. 
    
    I don't consider carrying a pregnancy to term with no 
    consideration for the baby to be an acceptable third 
    option. But I wouldn't care to try legislating against it. 
    
    And do we consider an alcoholic/addicted woman capable of
    making that decision intelligently ? Or do we take that
    decision away from her ? This has a lot of implications that
    go against my political beliefs.
    
    As was said a few notes back, prevention and support are
    vastly preferrable to the invasion of privacy and loss
    of freedom that comes from dealing with this issue too late.
    
    

 Ellen-

 The reason I'm placing myself in such an uncomfortable position is not
because I enjoy being a target. I am disturbed by the out of hand rejection
of (it appears) any solution that might interfere with a pregnant woman's
ability to do exactly as she likes without regard for the consequences of
the fetus. I am certainly not in favor of placing all pregnant women in jail.
Nor do I think that all pregnant alcoholics belong in jail. Actually, I'd
just as soon see no women in jail at all for fetal injury.

 On the other hand, I see that there is a _possibility_ that in some cases
involuntary help would be the only solution that makes any allowance at all
for the fetus. I don't think that jail is a good spot for involuntary help
either. What bothers me is that there seems to be a very large contingent
that feels that a) a woman can do anything she wants without the slightest
regard for the fetus (up to birth) or b) all we can do is give them the 
information that what they are doing is harmful and simply wash our hands
of the whole affair. But the fact remains that a significant number of
children are being born with eminently preventable birth defects.

 As far as the issue of indians incarcerating indians in the hope of salvaging
their gene pool/ tribe, I think that is up to them. I find the idea quite
ugly, but it is their solution. Who knows, you might feel a little differently
if your entire race faced extinction.

 =maggie-

>Those of us
>    who argue against such control need to target an actual advocate of the
>    pro-control position.  I suggest The Doctah since he hasn't had a good
>    drubbing in awhile ;')

 Are you saying that the fine members of this conference have missed 
opportunities to bash me? Say it aint so. They must be slipping. :-)

 As it turns out, I am not an advocate of putting pregnant women in jail.
Would that no one felt the need. The fact remains that I am unsatisfied with
the "provide information then wash hands" approach. I would like to see some
mechanism for eliminating needless birth defects. I am most open to other
suggestions as to how we can reduce preventable birth defects. 

 The Doctah

oh yeah- I wouldn't mind if someone took a stab at some of the more difficult
questions I have posed.

    Re .144
    
    >...more difficult questions I have posed...
    
    The way I see it, there's a trade-off between higher taxes with more
    social services on the one hand (less economic freedom but more
    economic equality), and lower taxes with less social services on
    the other (more economic freedom with less economic equality). 
    In broadly generalized terms, Europe tends to have relatively more
    economic equality and the U.S. tends to have relatively more economic
    freedom.  This is a broad choice made by societies.  When George
    Bush said "read my lips -- no new taxes,"  the majority of Americans
    who voted in the 1988 elections voted for him.
    
    I would offer the following "solution" if people really want to
    do something effective about the problems of poverty and deprivation
    in the U.S.:  provide more social support, and raise taxes to pay
    for it.  Realistically speaking, I don't think there's any other
    way.  A choice must be made between low taxes and a well-funded
    social support structure:  short of continuing to borrow ourselves
    into oblivion, you can't have your cake and eat it two.  Up until
    now, the choice has been made for low taxes -- and economic deprivation
    on a large scale is the price we pay.
    
    Keith

           <<< RAINBO::$2$DJA6:[NOTES$LIBRARY]WOMANNOTES-V2.NOTE;3 >>>
                        -< Topics of Interest to Women >-
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Note 735.142                 Two-legged incubators?                   142 of 145
ULTRA::GUGEL "Adrenaline: my drug of choice"          9 lines  16-AUG-1989 14:54
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>    re .138, "Doctah"
>    
>    Do you or do you not advocate the imprisonment or other type of 
>    incarceration (including mandatory treatment of any kind) of women
>    during pregnancy if they are alcoholic or drunkards?  Enough of your
>    smokescreens.  Please answer the question - yes or no?  Otherwise,
>    I (and presumably others) don't know what you're yelling so loudly
>    about.
>    
>
>
                       A QUESTION!
    
    Suppose we provided all the prenatal services that some in here
    have advocated as being 'the cure' for this problem. The indian
    woman has all the doctors and care she needs. BUT SHE REFUSES TO
    STOP DRINKING. 
    
    ***************** WHAT DO YOU ADVOCATE NOW? ***************
    
    
    ME ME ME ME ME ?

    
    Steve_who_doesn't_think_the_Doctah_should_be_the_only_one_asking_WHAT
         _would_you_do?

    Re .146, in the case that you state, where every service possible
    has been provided and the (Indian) woman will still not stop drinking?
     *I* would mind my own business and that's what I think you should
    do, too.  You cannot control everything that goes on in the world.
     There are plenty of lives being wasted in the world every day.
     Why concentrate on the embryos and fetuses of alcoholic Native
   American women?  If you care so much about saving human lives perhaps
    you could find something that would have a more widescale affect
    on the world than throwing one pregnant, alcoholic Indian woman
    in jail?
    
    Lorna
    

'What if' scenarios make me nervous, when they're talked about as if they had
some concrete meaning in real life. They strike me as sci fi or mental
masturbation (both of which I enjoy, by the way). They allow us to construct
worlds, and forget that we've done so.

'I believe that if...' seems more solid. Our listeners don't have to assume
thinks they don't believe in, and the point is made.
	Mez

    in re .135, .137, .139, and .141 (I think that is all of them).
    
    I do not and have not advocated putting pregnant women who are
    engaging in behavior harmful to their fetus in jail. It may have
    appeared that I was doing so in discussing the Native American
    case. What I was attempting to do, in that case, was to show
    that there was more to the case than the original description
    of 'an alcoholic pregnant woman was put in jail for the good
    of her fetus'. I felt that there was significant information involved
    that was being left out of the discussion.
    
    What I do object to is any notion that a woman has an inherant right
    to engage in behavior that is harmful to a developing child.
    
    Bonnie

    RE: .149
    
    I object to any notion that *anyone* has an inherent right to
    engage in behaviour that is harmful to a developing child.
    However, people do it all the time. Having alcoholic parents 
    in harmful to a developing child. Not teaching them the Golden
    Rule is harmful to a developing child. Smoking around them
    is harmful to a developing child. Not hugging them enough is
    harmful to a developing child. There are a whole lot of things
    that are harmful to developing children, and people do them
    every day.
    
    --DE
    

    
    It seems to me that legal action is most often used when there is
    solid evidence of a specific crime.  What makes me queasy about
    legal action against pregnant women using chemicals, quite apart
    from my feelings about their rights, responsibilities, and
    authorities, is that the legal action would be taken based on
    the *possibility* of a problem.  Not all offspring of women who
    use chemicals have problems.  So who draws the line of what and
    how much?  The question of moral responsibility is there, but
    taking legal action in these cases crosses the line into invasion
    of privacy and the abridgement of civil rights, imho.  As a society,
    we've become far too caught up in trying to control the world
    through courts and black-and-white measures, and spend far too
    little time, money, and compassion trying to educate and support.
    
    Ron
    
    ps.  This is slightly tongue in cheek, but what about men who
         have sperm abnormalities caused by the use of chemicals?

    re: .151
    
    � What makes me queasy about legal action against pregnant women 
    � using chemicals. . .is that the legal action would be taken based 
    � on the *possibility* of a problem.  Not all offspring of women who
    � use chemicals have problems.  

    That is, indeed, the unsettling issue here.  One thing that makes
    this a very difficult issue for me is that I agree with the laws
    concerning DUI (driving under the influence).  Yet such laws are
    based on exactly the same premise - that of the possibility, not
    the certainty, of a problem.  Not all people encountering an
    intoxicated driver have a problem.  
    
    Steve

    re .142, "doctah":

    I am glad to hear that you don't advocate throwing drunk pregnant
    women in jail or otherwise incarcerating them.  I still don't know,
    then, what you're arguing so forcefully about.  You say you want "you",
    some collective "you" (I'm guessing that's the women of this conference
    who are arguing with you, but I'm not certain even about that) to come
    up with some solutions to this problem.  If it's so *important* to *you*,
    why don't you suggest something?  Or maybe you already have, and I missed
    it, because I heard the yelling and screaming before I could hear the rest?
    
    re .146:
    
    I agree with Lorna on the answer to *your* question.  I would mind my
    own business.  BTW, I don't see anyone wanting to jail upper-class
    white alcholic pregnant women.  I think that's a telling point on
    what's *really* going on here.  After that, I would not mind paying an
    extra tax *if and only if* it were *specifically* earmarked for
    prevention, treatment, and education programs.  Better yet, I think we
    should raid the defense department's obese budget and use the money to
    fund these programs.
    
    Now please do me a favor.  Answer my question (which I asked first,
    BTW).  I would be very grateful if you did.  Here it is again, in
    case you forgot: Do you think that pregnant women (*any* pregnant
    woman) who are alcoholic should be incarcerated against their will?
    
    

    re .151
    
    I am also opposed to "legal action against" pregnant women, but
    for different reasons.  I don't at all feel opposed to legal action
    against tobacco companies even though some would argue that there
    is no proven link between smoking and various negative health effects.
    
    I am opposed to "legal action against" pregnant women in general
    terms because I feel that an alcoholic, pregnant woman should receive
    positive intervention or no intervention.  If the government is
    unwilling or unable to provide positive intervention, that it should
    (IMHO)  provide none.  Labeling certain behaviours by pregnant women
    as criminal is not going to solve the problem.
    
    The only solution I can think of is a better social support network
    for pregnant women, and such a support network would have a cost,
    and the taxpaying community would have to pay for it.  If the taxpaying
    community is unwilling to pay for real solutions and merely attempts
    to patch over the problem, then the problem will not be solved anytime
    soon.
    
    Keith

You know, I was watching a bit on the news last night about speed limits for
boats (in Fla in particular). And I began wondering about the rules to make us
safer. There was the protecting-your-gun rule (in Fla too, I believe). Speed
limits, and DWI. I'm sure there's a million.

I'm sure they help (they did stats on 55 mph, yes?). I'm uncomfortable with the
concept of "if we have enough rules, we'll be safe".
	Mez

>You know, I was watching a bit on the news last night about speed limits for
>boats (in Fla in particular). And I began wondering about the rules to make us
>safer. There was the protecting-your-gun rule (in Fla too, I believe). Speed
>limits, and DWI. I'm sure there's a million.

Tom Brokaw identified "KILLER BOATS" sounds like the old blame the object not 
the person BS. I mean we all know those nasty boats slip their own mooring at 
night and go out running-down swimmers while the owners are watching TV.
(does this sound like blame-the-assault-rifle0craze?)

>I'm sure they help (they did stats on 55 mph, yes?). I'm uncomfortable with the
>concept of "if we have enough rules, we'll be safe".
>	Mez

Thank You Mez, May I kiss you if we ever meet?

Amos

    Re: several
    
    This discussion has shown a tendency to polarize at two extremes
    and leave out the middle ground.  I'll quote one of the clearer
    statements:
    
>    I think that a pregnant woman should ask herself "Do I
>    want to have a healthy baby ?" If yes, than act accordingly.
>    If not, then abort the foetus. 
>    
>    I don't consider carrying a pregnancy to term with no 
>    consideration for the baby to be an acceptable third 
>    option. But I wouldn't care to try legislating against it. 
    
    There is a wide wide range of behavior between "no consideration
    to the baby" and "doing everything possible to have a healthy
    baby."  That behavior, and the position I'm advocating, is "doing
    everything reasonable to have a healthy baby."  And that the
    mother is the only person in a position to decide what's
    reasonable for her.  There will be women who abuse their power
    over the child; there have always been and will always be people
    of both sexes who abuse their power.  But that's the price of
    freedom. 

    Jailing pregnant women is obviously an extreme situation, but what
    about less drastic situations?  

    A few years back my sister-in-law had a problem with preterm
    labor.  Most of the side effects of the drug they gave her to stop
    the contractions affect the mother.  Among other things, she can
    suffer high blood pressure and permanent kidney damage.  Risks to
    the baby are much lower.  If she's to do everything possible to
    have a healthy baby, should she be required to take that drug?  Or
    is it reasonable of her to say, "I love this child and want to
    have it, but I'm not willing to sacrifice my health for the rest
    of my life in order to bear it.  If I miscarry, so be it -- I will
    have other children"?  

    Should it be illegal for a bartender to serve a drink to an
    obviously pregnant woman?

    Should a woman (or a couple) who has a known genetic problem be
    allowed to have children?  

    Should a child who is born with problems after its mother does
    something that might have increased her baby's risk, against her
    doctor's advice, be able to collect civil damages from the mother?
    I have in mind things like continuing to train for athletic
    competition or drinking diet soda that "might cause harm to the
    baby, what kind we don't know", not things like heavy drinking,
    whose effects are specific and well-known.

    Keep in mind that almost nothing causes problems in one hundred
    percent of mothers -- according to one study I read recently, up
    to half the severely alcoholic mothers gave birth to normal babies
    -- and that many perfectly normal pregnancies in which the mother
    takes scrupulous care of herself develop problems.  

    Does the doctor decide what's the recommended behavior?  The
    American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists?  The
    insurance company whose review boards are peeking over your
    personal physician's shoulder deciding whether you're driving up
    their costs?  I'm not going to drag poor Dan Quayle into this;
    he's quite busy enough being the butt of other jokes and there are
    more than enough parties with a "legitimate" interest in the
    issue.

    For that matter, some doctors -- a not insignificant number --
    think that working at a video terminal increases the risk of
    miscarriage and birth defects.  Should I leave my job to guarantee
    that the baby will be safe?

    --bonnie

    

    re. 138 to the Doctah and any others who might find merit here...
    
    You posed a question as to the options open to pregnant addicts.  As
    you have posed it, it would seem that the right the unborn has to a
    healthy start in life is irrevocably in conflict to the right of the
    addict to self-determination of how to treat her body.
    
    I wish to shine a light upon an alternative to state-controlled and
    laissez-faire scenarios:
    
    There exists a private woman-run substance abuse treatment facility in
    Dorchester that takes special care with the pregnant addict in an
    effort to assure the health of both mother and future child. [not all
    clients are pregnant, but all are women some with children in
    residence].  The ability of this program to help is limited by its
    ability to stay afloat.
    
    More than addiction contributes to fetal distress and jails/prisons are
    not noted for the high nutritional value of their menus.
    
    Rather than incarcerate pregnant addicts and suffer through increased
    taxes [which we all think we know are not spent by the state with the
    greatest of efficiency] would it not be better to directly support
    programs such as this so that more addicts [pregnant, man or woman,
    child, white, non-white ... ] might break the cycle of addiction?
    
    	Ann

    RE: .158
    
    Right! WE need to work at breaking the cycle of addiction!! Exactly.
    
    RE: Bonnie Randall
    
    Yes indeed - there are so many different situations and so many
    different opportunities to say what's "right". Where, indeed,
    do we draw the line? And who gets to say?
    
    --DE
    

    in re Bonnie R
    
    Thanks for your wonderful and thoughtful note. I concur with
    your thoughts and feel that they are very close to my own.
    
    in re Ann  thanks for mentioning that center. This is one positive
    thing we can all do, lend our support to privately run groups
    that intervene in such situations to help both the mother and
    her unborn child.
    
    Bonnie

Amos, yes you may. :-) You made my morning. I suddenly realized that being a
co-mod is a _lot_ like being a supervisor (my credentials for this statement; I
live with and work for managers :-). You spend a lot of time trying to support
others, sometimes doing unpleasant things for what you perceive is the good of
the organizational unit, and there's _nothing_ in the structure that supports
positive feedback. So, next time your supervisor does something _good_, tell
them (and tell _their_ manager)! 

On the topic:

On the news last night was a story about the results of women, alcohol, and
breast feeding. Seems that even a glass of wine per day while the mother is
breastfeeding can slow motor responses in the child (no brain damage though).
They're not sure if it's permanent.

Advocates of breast-feeding are worried about publishing these results. They're
afraid women will forgo breast-feeding (and the substantial benefits to the
baby, such as increased immunities), so they can get back to social drinking.
Having known several women who had babies, and celebrated the abstinance from
alcohol afterwards, I believe that concern is quite valid.
	Mez

    Regarding degrees: 
    	
    	Hitting a child is not necessarily child abuse. If I strike
    my child I will not be called negligent or abusive by the law. But
    if I beat or poisen my child to the point of brain damage, I will
    be held accountable. Remembering that there is a new person with
    permenant brain damage here. (alcohol causes deformity whereby many
    other drugs cause addiction which is treatable). 
    
    	Seat belts, drunk driving, and anti-gambling laws all work under
    the premice that "something bad might happen".It is not law that
    I wear a seatbelt but it is law that my kids do. 
    
    	We sit here and speak of hypatheticals and women's rights when
    some inner city hospitals have 30% of their newborns born with with
    a preventable condition. It's epidemic. 
    
    	Not jail like Framingham MCI but maybe some very close monitoring
    would help. Or maybe, in some special circumstances, house arrest
    or negative sanctions. I don't know.
    
    Regarding whose kids are they anyway?:
    	I thought the belief that one's kids belonged to the parents
    right or wrong was prehistoric.
    
    Bless the beasts and the children
    For in this world they have no choice
    In this world they have no voice
    				-Paul Williams

Ellen Goodman has an article in today's Boston Globe on this very
subject.  The focus was on drug addiction and pregnacncy (as Kate was
pointed out).

john

    Ya know, sometimes I think Ellen Goodman reads this conference. :-) Her
    articles so frequently seem to be exactly targeted to our discussions.

    I read Ellen Goodman's article.  The point that she made that seemed
    most pertinent to me is one that I believe may have already been
    mentioned in this topic.
    
    The precedent of incarcerating pregnant women against their will will
    most likely lead to pregnant women not seeking prenatal care.  I don't
    think anyone wants that.
    

    
    Forgive me if someone's already mentioned this, but what about doing
    something to educate those men out there who are impregnating
    these alcoholic women with such poor impulse control?!  Perhaps
    these men should be locked up until they learn to control their 
    impulses or until they are no longer capable of fathering children.
    
    The U.S. government has not made providing adequate pre-natal care
    a priority.  Many poor women are having unhealthy babies simply
    because the mothers cannot afford good medical care, and they don't
    have insurance -- I know that women on welfare can get some medical
    care, but I'm talking about the working poor who don't qualify for
    welfare but whose employers don't provide insurance.  Even though 
    FAS and FAE are devestating, and even though locking pregnant women 
    up may mean that more healthy babies are born, this idea seems far too
    punitive to me.  If the state were to design a comprehensive pre-natal
    program that would include detox, if needed, adequate food, warm
    clothing, and shelter (you know, all those things that give a baby
    a chance at being born alive and healthy)   and to offer that package
    to all poor pregnant women, then I would support it, and then I would
    believe that the state is really interested in protecting the unborn.
    But to single out one group and to incarcerate them for the "sake
    of the unborn" frightens me.
           
    Justine                                                 

    We could bring back the 19th Ammendment to the US Constitution (I
    think that was the one to institute prohibition) [stated with tongue
    in cheek].

    in re the study that found a connection between drinking while nursing,
    and slow child development: I think it's worth pointing out that it's
    only one (1) study. Any single statistical study should probably be
    taken with a grain of salt until it's confirmed by others.
    
    No axe to grind, just interested in good science,
    Chuck

re .166 (Justine Sullivan)

    Yes, yes!  I'd even vote for higher taxes to support such a
    program!  I suppose in the meantime I ought to contribute my
    charitable dollars to a local equivalent... 

    Re the breast-feeding possible problem with drinking: couldn't a
    nursing mother just bottle-feed her baby for the 24 hours (or
    whatever) after she's been drinking?  (Assuming she doesn't drink
    every day.)  Or she could store breast milk for a day or two
    before she plans to go out partying, and bottle-feed the baby
    breast milk afterwards.  I know storing it's a hassle, 'cause my
    sister did it so her baby would be fed breast milk while she was
    working, but it would at least enable a nursing mother to have an
    occasional drink without worrying about the effect on the baby. 

    -- Linda 

    I would like to know if the moter skills where temperarilly delayed
    i.e. only for an hour or a day or if it was aver the long term.
    It was suggested to me to drink a beer and a glass of wine a day to 
    encourage increased milk flow (they suggested that the beer be an 
    import that was not pasturized with heat).
    
    I know I didnt alcohal every day but I didnt worry about moderate 
    consumtion and If we went out for the evening I just tried to feed him
    the bottle(when he would take them).
    
    I now have a walking 10 month old who has in the last three weeks 
    managed to find and empty completly three full klenex boxes into 
    piles of white all around him. We had made major efforts to keep the 
    boxes hidden from him but within reach of the 3 year old.
    
    I dont think his motor skills have been damaged or delayed and I 
    some times wonder what it would be like to have a 14month old
    crawler.All of mine have walked well befor 12 mths.
    janet
    

    Re: .97
    
    Without knowing more about the abilities of the person being explained
    to, I don't know how easy/difficult/possible it is to explain.  It
    might work, it might not work.  I don't know enough to assume failure,
    but neither do I know enough to assume success.

I would hope that my posting is not taking as any sort of accurate statement of
cause and effect (breast feeding and alcohol). I am _sure_ that more studies
are needed. It is meant to point out that the biological connection doesn't
stop at birth, so that scenarios can extend past the 9 months. Also, it points
out what sort of studies are being done (I did being thinking about why no
studies were done on men and their babies; at least, none I knew of...)
	Mez

    Mez, there have been studies on parents that smoke and the incidence of
    bronchial problems on those children.  My son-in-law does not smoke in
    the same room as his children as a result of this study.

    Here's a new case -- I just heard on the radio that a
    Massachusetts woman has been charged with "giving cocaine to a
    minor" for taking the drug while she was pregnant.  
    
    This is the same charge she would have faced if she had been
    standing at the gate of a schoolyard giving samples of cocaine to
    kids as they left.
    
    --bonnie

 The woman and her husband are currently in jail for burning the soles of
the baby's feet with cigarettes. The woman allegedly ingested cocaine at least
twice: seven weeks before delivery and two days before delivery. If she gets
convicted on that charge, then the father ought to be indicted on the charge of
contributing to the delinquency of a minor for his role in the coke thing.
In any case, burning the soles of a <two month old child is not the sort of
thing that ought to be overlooked. I feel very bad for the baby.

 The Doctah

    I feel very bad for the baby, and for people who could inflict
    this kind of senseless pain on a helpless baby, and for a society
    that seems to be producing examples of this kind of cruelty and
    selfishness on a regular basis.  Human beings have always been
    capable of cruelty to each other, but it seems like the society we
    have right now is encouraging people to be more selfish, more
    cruel.
    
    I dunno.  (Big sigh.)  We can't just let this kind of stuff go on
    and on -- but what can we do?  
    
    --bonnie

    How can anyone hear or read about something like this -- and all
    the other atrocities committed by people while high on drugs --
    and still argue for legalization of controlled substances???!?
    
    Individual rights end where another's rights begin, and especially
    when we're talking about fetuses or children, the parents' rights
    MUST be more limited.
    
    It's a fact of biology and psychology.
                        
    I'm sorry if this isn't entirely coherent, but I'm angry!
    Karen

>but it seems like the society we
>    have right now is encouraging people to be more selfish, more
>    cruel.

 Or it's not doing enough to discourage cruelty.

 The Doctah

    re: .178
    
    Or not doing enough to encourage people to be unselfish and
    generous.
    
    --bonnie

    Bonnie Reinke - I generally agree with everything you say but this time
    I cannot.  Someone else mentioned "abuse of power" and that it will
    always occur to some degree.  Nearly every human sociological trait
    can be expressed as a bell curve.  There will be greatness on one end
    and supreme evil on the other with most of the population falling in
    between.  Women and their traits are no exception!  We are not MORE
    evil than men because our *normal* variations occur in conjunction with
    our unique power to give life.  We can give birth, but we can also be
    mere humans, no?  Or are we, because of our gift, not allowed or not
    expected to exhibit humanness?  Yes, some unborn will suffer.  But it is
    a fact of life that the fate of the unborn was given to mere humans.
    Women should not be penalized in ANY way for exhibiting both this
    awsome power of life and humanness. 
    
    Although our power is unique, our variations are as normal as rain.
    Having said that, I believe women must have absolute soverignty over their
    bodies and their power.  Most have always, and will continue to, use 
    that power sincerely and wisely.
    
    To legislate against the natural variation of life is ludicrous.  To
    use women's unique and wonderful powers as a reason to "just this
    once", or "just in this instance", legislate against natural variation
    is pure misogyny.  There are many men on the "low" side of the bell
    curve of certain behaviors that ALSO "destroy life".  But we seem to
    accept variation here much more easily than we accept women's.  I can
    only ask, "Why?"
    
    Our gift is being used as an excuse to attempt to control the instances
    of deviation in women.  Sounds rather "Hitler-esque" to me.  

>    How can anyone hear or read about something like this -- and all
>    the other atrocities committed by people while high on drugs --
>    and still argue for legalization of controlled substances???!?

 Well, because it is obvious that the current system does not work, it is
inefficient, and will never prevent these types of things from happening.
I firmly and steadfastly believe that there are more effective ways to
utilize the tremendous resources being currently expended on stopping the 
distribution of controlled substances in a manner as to reduce the incidence
of these tragedies. Alas, this is a rathole beginning to form. Perhaps a note
dedicated to this subject is more appropriate?

 The Doctah

    
    Thanks, Sandy, for your reply (.180) and I'll nominate that for the
    =wn= Hall of Fame.
    
    Ann Marie

    re: .180
    
    No freedom is absolute. 
    
    I'm tempted to quote "All power tends to corrupt, and absolute
    power corrupts absolutely."  Absolute power over another life,
    whether potential or actual?  No, thank you.  
    
    --bonnie

    Sandy,
    
    I do not and have not advocated that women should be jailed for
    behavior that is potentially harmful to their unborn. I do feel
    very strongly, however, that while they are pregnant with a child
    they intend to carry to term, and given how fragile and easily damaged
    that life is, that they should put the needs of that individual
    first. 
    
    Bonnie

>    Yes, some unborn will suffer.  But it is
>    a fact of life that the fate of the unborn was given to mere humans.
    
 Then an arbitrary amount of human suffering is acceptable?
    
>    Having said that, I believe women must have absolute soverignty over their
>    bodies and their power.  Most have always, and will continue to, use 
>    that power sincerely and wisely.
    
    So a woman who abuses her power of life-giving must not be interfered
    with lest we disturb her sovereignty? As outsiders, we are forced to
    watch and ackowledge suffering that we could prevent if we were to
    invalidate the sovereignty of one who happens to decline the
    responsibility that one takes on when one decides to have a baby?
    
>    There are many men on the "low" side of the bell
>    curve of certain behaviors that ALSO "destroy life".  But we seem to
>    accept variation here much more easily than we accept women's. 
    
    Since when has murder become legal or acceptable when performed by
    males?
    
    The problem with absolutist values (like "women must have complete
    sovereignty over their bodies" or "from the moment of conception
    the new life is a complete human") is that they lend themselves easily
    to logical extensions which are clearly unreasonable. The logical
    extension of the latter which appears unreasonable has to do with
    frozen embryos. The logical extension of the former is that you can do
    coke two days before you have your baby and it's ok becuz the baby
    isn't a person yet (putting aside the fact that it's illegal for the
    mother to do coke). Neither of these ideas make sense, yet they persist
    because people take absolutist positions (ostensibly to prevent an
    erosion of their power.)
    
    Is there no middle ground? Is there no way to ensure that women have a
    reasonable amount of control over their lives without writing off
    thousands of fetuses? I'm sure this note sounds like a real attack; it
    isn't meant to be. I'm really trying to find out just how far you are
    willing to go in the pursuit of political power. Don't get me wrong, it
    is right and natural that women seek more power than they currently
    have, after all, women have been denied power even to the point of
    self-determination for centuries. But I think there is a point where
    the children must be factored into the equation. I'm specifically NOT
    saying that the fetuses are more important. But they do have SOME
    value. The failure to acknowledge any value of the fetus is my number
    one complaint with the idea of complete female sovereignty over their
    bodies.
    
    I'm seriously not trying to flame you or anyone who holds your
    position.
    
    Is there any point to a continuation of the discussion, or should we
    just agree to disagree? 
    
    The Doctah

    	RE: .185  Doctah
    
    	> Then an arbitrary amount of human suffering is acceptable?
 
    	An arbitrary amount of human suffering is *unpreventable* in a
    	society like ours.  The only way to prevent all avoidable suffering
    	would be if we put our entire population in jail (or give up ALL
    	CONTROL over ALL our bodies, male and female.)
    
    	If we seek to only control *women's* bodies, it would prevent a
    	tiny part of the avoidable suffering, true.  However, unless men
    	are ALSO willing to give up control of THEIR bodies, too, then
    	asking women to give up control of our bodies is unreasonable.
    
    	> So a woman who abuses her power of life-giving must not be 
    	> interfered with lest we disturb her sovereignty? 
    
    	When your wife was pregnant with your daughter last year, was it
    	everyone else's business how your wife took care of herself, or do
    	you think it would have been reasonable for people to camp out in
    	your living room to watch every move she made (and monitor every
    	motion, every meal, and the amount of sleep she got) in case she
    	might have done something wrong?
    
    	How much privacy would you have been willing to watch your wife
    	give up for someone else's interest in what she was doing with her
    	body during pregnancy?  How could your wife have *proven* to an
    	outsider that she was capable of taking care of herself to *that
    	person's* satisfaction?  
    
    	> As outsiders, we are forced to watch and ackowledge suffering 
    	> that we could prevent if we were to invalidate the sovereignty of 
    	> one who happens to decline the responsibility that one takes on 
    	> when one decides to have a baby?
    
    	Whose living rooms should we all camp in to monitor every motion
    	that pregnant women make across our country?  Who should make the
    	decision about which pregnant women lose their freedom and privacy?
    
    	> Since when has murder become legal or acceptable when performed by
    	> males?
    
    	The difference is that men are not jailed as a way to *prevent* a
    	particular person from being harmed.  Ask any woman who has been
    	threatened by a violent husband and goes to the police for
    	protection.  They can't do anything until the man actually commits
    	a crime.  
    
    	Incarceration is *considered* a way to prevent future crimes, but
    	people go to prison because of the commission of *actual* crimes.
    	You don't see people in prison because society *thought* they might
    	eventually commit a crime of some kind.
    
    	> Is there no way to ensure that women have a reasonable amount of 
    	> control over their lives without writing off thousands of fetuses?
    
    	Most murders are committed by men.  Think of all the murder victims
    	we could save if we took over control of men's bodies.  Or do you
    	think it's ok to "write off" thousands of murder victims by allowing
    	men to have a reasonable amount of control over their bodies?
    
    	> I'm really trying to find out just how far you are willing to go 
    	> in the pursuit of political power.
    
    	Excuse me???  Why are women's bodies the battleground for political
    	power in the first place?
    
    	Let's fight over control of men's bodies instead (since men do more
    	damage to other people than anyone else.)
    
    	> Don't get me wrong, it is right and natural that women seek more 
    	> power than they currently have, after all, women have been denied 
    	> power even to the point of self-determination for centuries.
    
    	Interesting.  Men have power over politics, business, the economy,
    	etc., but *women's* struggle for power only involves "governing"
    	our own bodies (which you seem to be arguing against.)
    
    	Obviously, if women aren't even trusted to have power over our own
    	bodies, there's *no way* society will allow us to have power over
    	things like politics, business and the economy.  Maybe that's the
    	main goal here (not in *your* agenda perhaps, but in the agenda of
    	society as a whole.)
    
    	> But I think there is a point where the children must be factored 
    	> into the equation. 
    
    	Ok.  Much/most child abuse (physical and sexual) is committed by
    	males.  We could prevent much of that if we controlled men's bodies.
    	Let's do it!
    
    	> I'm specifically NOT saying that the fetuses are more important. 
    	> But they do have SOME value. The failure to acknowledge any value 
    	> of the fetus is my number one complaint with the idea of complete 
    	> female sovereignty over their bodies.
    
    	Why stop with fetuses, though?  If we control men's bodies, we can
    	save children, women and lots of other men (not to mention whole
    	countries, and our entire planet.)  :)
    
    	Please explain to me why we should allow men to have any freedom
    	AT ALL over their own bodies (since men's bodies do *so* much harm
    	to the world and the people in it)?

 It's about time. :-)

>    	How much privacy would you have been willing to watch your wife
>    	give up for someone else's interest in what she was doing with her
>    	body during pregnancy?  How could your wife have *proven* to an
>    	outsider that she was capable of taking care of herself to *that
>    	person's* satisfaction?  

 I don't think that anyone is planning on taking such a big brother approach 
to the situation. I would expect that intervention would only even be an issue
when a woman _demonstrated_ an inability or unwillingness to exercise a
minimal amount of responsibility. As you well know, I think that the less
a government interferes with the private decisions of its citizens, the better.
I do not want monitoring of pregnant women. I do not want governmental 
intrusiveness. I do want a minimal amount of protection for the women and
fetuses.

>     	Whose living rooms should we all camp in to monitor every motion
>    	that pregnant women make across our country?  

 None.

 But if a woman is arrested for posession, or drunk and disorderly or whatever,
it may be reasonable to ascertain the fitness of said woman for motherhood
(assuming she's pregnant).

>    	The difference is that men are not jailed as a way to *prevent* a
>    	particular person from being harmed.  Ask any woman who has been
>    	threatened by a violent husband and goes to the police for
>    	protection.  They can't do anything until the man actually commits
>    	a crime.  

 Perhaps we should take a different tack then. Instead of preventing the crimes
(like drunk driving laws), maybe we should simply punish women after they
commit them. So if mother X gives birth to a child with a cocaine dependency,
or FAS, then we toss her in jail. Is that what you're suggesting?

 (Yes, I know that isn't. What you want is complete and unfettered freedom.
NOBODY has that.)

>    	Please explain to me why we should allow men to have any freedom
>    	AT ALL over their own bodies (since men's bodies do *so* much harm
>    	to the world and the people in it)?

 Because of what you already stated: people don't go to jail until AFTER they
commit crimes (and even then, alot get away with it.)

 The Doctah

	By, Hera, I think she's got it.

	Thanks Ms. Colon for such a great job of idenitifing the "real"
	issue.  I have been trying to do it in subtle ways - I am glad
	that you stated it clearly and exactly.

	Women's bodies are the battle ground and it is for control of
	them that women are fighting for.  I really am beginning to 
	believe that men are afraid that if women control their own
	bodies that they (men) will be cast out into the wilderness,
	alone with no one to do the necessary functions of life for
	them.

	_peggy

		(-)
		 |
			If you depend upon someone else to do the
			unpaid labor of the world and they stop!!!

    	RE: .187  Doctah
    
    	> I do want a minimal amount of protection for the women and
	> fetuses.
    
    	Please explain what you mean by protection for the women (in the
    	context of the present discussion.)
    
    	> But if a woman is arrested for posession, or drunk and disorderly 
    	> or whatever, it may be reasonable to ascertain the fitness of said 
    	> woman for motherhood (assuming she's pregnant).
    
    	Of course, you would want to use these same standards to judge a
    	man's fitness to be father, right?  
    
    	> Instead of preventing the crimes (like drunk driving laws), maybe 
    	> we should simply punish women after they commit them.
    
    	Driving drunk is a crime unto itself (for everyone.)
    
    	> So if mother X gives birth to a child with a cocaine dependency,
	> or FAS, then we toss her in jail. Is that what you're suggesting?
    
    	It isn't a crime to ingest alcohol, or even cocaine for that
    	matter.
    
    	It is a crime to sell or possess cocaine, but it is not a crime to
    	ingest it.  People can't be prosecuted merely for having substances
    	in their blood, nor can they be prosecuted for having an addiction.
    	If you start prosecuting women for ingesting things (and don't also
    	prosecute men for it,) it's sexual discrimination.
    
    	> What you want is complete and unfettered freedom. NOBODY has that.
    
    	Not at all.  What I want is for women to have as much right to the
    	freedom and privacy of our own bodies as men have for theirs.

    <--(.187)
    
    Mark, Suzanne is making her point so clearly that I can't tell whether
    you're *really* missing it or just being obnoxious. :')
    
    *NOBODY KNOWS* whether some alcoholic woman will give birth to a
    damaged child.  Any conclusion arrived at pre-partum is mere
    speculation in the individual case.  Why should the woman be penalised
    because something MIGHT happen (what is it, a 50/50 chance)?  There's
    certainly a LOT of evidence to suggest that, e.g., an alcoholic man
    will abuse his children, but you're not arguing that HE should be
    locked up to prevent that happening!  Why not?  The weight of the
    evidence is roughly equal in either case.  Why is your focus
    exclusively on controlling the behavior of _women_?
    
    						=maggie

>    	Of course, you would want to use these same standards to judge a
>    	man's fitness to be father, right?  

 Inasmuch as it affected the child, yes. But the fact of the matter is that 
the father does not have an umbilical cord attached to the baby; the mother 
does. So if the father is a heroine addict, there is no direct detriment to
a fetus. There is if the mother is. 

>    	Driving drunk is a crime unto itself (for everyone.)

 But it's a preventative maintenance crime. You haven't actually done anything
that is detrimental to anyone else. It is a crime because it has a higher
probability of contributing to the cause of an accident. Nothing more.

>    	It isn't a crime to ingest alcohol, or even cocaine for that
>    	matter.

 So if you have a drug present in your bloodstream it is not in your posession?

>    	Not at all.  What I want is for women to have as much right to the
>    	freedom and privacy of our own bodies as men have.

 In every aspect except that of pregnancy, that is already the case. The only
reason that pregnancy is an issue is because the courts have failed to rule
on whether the unborn child deserves any protection whatsoever before physical
birth. I contend that there is a point after which SOME consideration must
be given to the fetus. You (and many others) contend that the unborn child
is unworthy of any protection from malice or neglect for the simple reason
that it has not been born. We are both entitled to our opinions. In the end,
the overriding opinion will be given by 8 men and 1 woman (assuming they
shoulder up to their responsibility).

 The entire issue hinges on whether the unborn child gets any protection under
the law (ie is a person) at some point before birth. Those that feel that
birth is the beginning of personhood will never agree with those that feel that
unborn children are at some point entitled to some consideration. It's a simple
enough dichotomy.

 The Doctah

    	RE: .191  Doctah
    
    	>> Of course, you would want to use these same standards to judge a
	>> man's fitness to be father, right?  

 	> Inasmuch as it affected the child, yes. But the fact of the 
    	> matter is that the father does not have an umbilical cord attached 
    	> to the baby; the mother does. So if the father is a heroine addict, 
    	> there is no direct detriment to a fetus. There is if the mother is. 
    
    	If the father is a heroin addict, he *could* harm the fetus by
    	harming the mother (just as *any* father could.)
    
    	If the mother is a heroin addict, she *could* harm the fetus by
    	what she does to herself (just as *any* mother could.)
    
    	So why control the mother's body more than the father's (when both
    	parents, and strangers who have access to the mother's body in any
    	way, have the potential for harming the fetus?)
    
    	>> It isn't a crime to ingest alcohol, or even cocaine for that
	>> matter.

 	> So if you have a drug present in your bloodstream it is not in 
    	> your posession?
    
    	No, it's not.  Why else do drug users sometimes try to ingest their
    	drug supplies while the cops are busting through the doors?  :-)
    
    	> The only reason that pregnancy is an issue is because...
    
    	...women get pregnant and men don't.  That's the bottom line.

>>    	Of course, you would want to use these same standards to judge a
>>    	man's fitness to be father, right?  
>
> Inasmuch as it affected the child, yes. But the fact of the matter is that 
>the father does not have an umbilical cord attached to the baby; the mother 
>does. So if the father is a heroine addict, there is no direct detriment to
>a fetus. There is if the mother is. 
    
    I don't know about heroin, but around ten years ago, several
    studies implicated the father's marijuana use as a cause of
    developmental problems in the children.  The problems were similar
    to the fetal alcohol effects that were described earlier.
    
    This week's _Time_ magazine has an article on the fetal alcohol
    problem that indicates that some research has found a connection
    between a man's drinking habits and problems in the children he
    fathers.  
    
    Granted, these effects all take place at the time of conception,
    not during gestation, but that seems to me to be a matter of
    timing, not an essential difference.
    
    --bonnie

    re .191 >if the father is a heroin addict, there is no direct
            >detriment to a fetus

    Suppose the male-contributed genes are damaged. The father
    contributes half the genetic material, and if the child
    is born disabled, who is to say it isn't because of
    *his* substance abuse at some time ? 

    My bet would be that the heroin-addict mother isn't married
    to some Puritan who never ingested anything stronger than tea.

 UNCLE! (AUNT?!!)

 Let the chips fall where they may. It's the american way.

 The Doctah

    It is in this topic that I have been struck by a dichotomy between
    what folks consider to be 'moral' or 'proper' behavior and what
    they want to have be 'illegal' behavior.  (It is there in other
    topics also.  Here is where it has been most obvious to me.)  
    The standards for moral behavior are more stringent.  What is 
    legal has a broader range and includes behavior which is potentially, 
    but not provably, damaging.  My opinion is that this is an 
    appropriate approach.  Defining behavior as illegal requires a degree 
    of coercion and oversight to ensure that illegal behavior does not 
    occur.  Most of us have had enough experience to sense that the 
    overseeing is generally applied to those with less power to influence 
    the result if the overseeing detects possibly, but not necessarily, 
    illegal behavior.  We also recognize that it is *extremely* difficult 
    to prove innocence, particularly of intent.  This makes *me*, at 
    least, very reluctant to legislate *my* morals.  (Because of my 
    religious affiliation, my moral stand is currently under significant 
    legal attack on grounds which I regard as unnecessarily interfering 
    with internal family decisions.  As a result, I am very sensitive to 
    these issues.)
    
    The intersection of public and private morality is very slippery
    ground in as pluralistic a society as the USA.  It is frequently
    not the initial intent of a law which proves detrimental to individual
    freedom, but the secondary and tertiary consequences of enforcement.
    I think this is why there is such great reluctance here to assert
    the right of the state to interfere with a woman's behavior during
    pregnancy, for the good of the fetus.  
    
    I have rambled enough.  Thank you, Suzanne, for stating what I wanted
    to and couldn't find the words for, earlier.
    
    Alison
    
    
      
    

    Mark,
    
    You know the story about the camel persuading his way into his
    owner's tent on a cold desert night?  Good.
    
    You are in the position of defending the nose of the camel.  We
    all understand this.  But I (among many others, I suspect) am well
    aware that somewhere beyond you are people willing to defend the
    entire camel.  The best way to keep the camel out of the tent is
    to refuse to let even the nose of the camel in.
    
    That's what you're encountering.
    
    							Ann B.

>The best way to keep the camel out of the tent is
>    to refuse to let even the nose of the camel in.
>    
>    That's what you're encountering.

 I can empathise. I feel the same way about gun control, so the idea of
creeping power (read abuse) is not at all foreign to me.

 The Doctah

    True, it's not a crime to have alcohol or "controlled substances"
    (is that an oxymoron?) in your bloodstream *except* when to do
    so *might* injure others, such as when driving a vehicle.  By
    and large, intoxicated drivers don't hurt others  - *far* less than
    50% of the time, but we still (try to) restrict their actions. 
    If caught often enough, such individuals can be required to go
    into treatment (and/or jail).  It's o.k. for me to get blotto as
    long as I don't *risk* hurting another person.  And I suspect that
    most of us here would prefer to keep the DUI statutes in place.
    
    If this is so, then we generally agree that people, women and men,
    should not have absolute license to act as they choose, particularly
    when those actions stand a reasonable chance of injuring others.
    Within this context, should we be able to require that an addicted 
    parent or parent-to-be to get treatment?  Specifically, I'm picking
    up on something I toyed with earlier (.69) and that has started
    working its way into the more current replies - suppose that (for
    example) involuntary treatment were to apply equally to the addicted
    male parent.  Yea or nay?
    
    Steve

    Does everyone really believe it is such a crime to drink
    while pregnant?  When two months pregnant, my wife
    specifically asked her doctor about alcohol and was
    told that she should feel free to have a small amount if
    she wanted and that it would be fine.

    In the same light, its no crime to drive after drinking....
    it only becomes a crime if your blood alcohol reaches a certain
    level.  right???
    bob

>    Does everyone really believe it is such a crime to drink
>    while pregnant?  When two months pregnant, my wife
>    specifically asked her doctor about alcohol and was
>    told that she should feel free to have a small amount if
>    she wanted and that it would be fine.

 I certainly don't think that moderate amounts of alcohol consumed on even a 
regular basis should be evidence of a crime. But perhaps someone who drinks
heavily on a daily basis might be in need of some involuntary help. (Oh, 
I just know I'll get called on that one. :-)

 The Doctah

ps- My wife occasionally had a half glass of beer or wine cooler during her
pregnancy, and no, I wouldn't want someone to cart her off to jail because of
it.

      Sigh...I've got to stop dozing off when I listen to NPR in the
      morning.

      A few days ago I thought I heard that one of Prez Bush's ideas to
      fight drug abuse was to specifically target pregnant women, was I
      dreaming or did anyone else hear this?

      Said only partially sarcastically...
      
      Given the new DNA typing that is available we should be able to
      trace the father of any child and if he's a drunk or a user of
      drugs he should be jailed for the crime of impregnating a woman
      with the full knowledge that he may have damaged chromosomes and
      therefore willfully participated in the creation of a potentually
      damaged child. If the child is born unaffected the father could be
      released from jail. Drug and alcohol testing would be mandatory
      for all couples where sex resulted in pregnancy. liesl

    re: .200
    
    There's no evidence that an occasional small drink causes any
    problems.  Even the most adamant "no drinking" doctors admit that,
    but add that they can't prove it's harmless, either, and it's much
    better to avoid alcohol and avoid the potential of risk entirely.
    
    --bonnie

    There's a very good article in TIME magazine this week about FAS.  They
    also talk about the drinking father's contribution(?) to the
    offspring's health.
    
    Marge

    Should men who impregnate alcoholic or drug addicted women be jailed
    to protect future fetuses?  Are they sleeping with strange women whoes
    characters they are unfamiliar with?  If so, don't they pose a danger
    to society and their own future children?
    
    Just how far can we go with this.
    
    It just seems that we are once again attacking symptoms rather than
    causes.  America has one of the highest infant mortality rates of
    the industrialized nations.  Why?  Don't we care about the quality
    of our babies lives anymore?
    
    What drives women to drink?  Are they born that way?  When and why do 
    they begin?  On Indian Reservations it is the lack of opportunity
    and the grinding poverty that causes the rate of alcoholism.  Why
    can't we spend some money improving conditions?
    
    Why can't we make life easier for young mothers and their children?  
    We spend so much money on other things and so little on our young.
    Its such a waste and such a shame.  So much money wasted in Savings
    and Loans bailouts and HUD scandals and Pentagon influence selling
    and so little for the children and the young families.
    Whats the matter with us anyway?  We need more women in government.
                                       
    Mary
                                    
    

    The following is edited from a mail message I received today.
    The author has permitted me to enter the text here as an
    anonymous note.
    
    _________________________________________________________________
    
    
    
Bonnie,

I was browsing through WOMANNOTES the other day and read your 
note. It hit an incredibly sensitive nerve! [this was note 735.62]

I, too, have a mildly retarded, developmentally delayed son, age
20, who, I believe, was the victim of a fetal insult - - alcohol!
We (my wife and I) have anguished over this for years, trying to
do the best we can to raise him and give him the tools to become
self-sufficient, at least to the limit of his ability. 

I counsel all who will listed to go easy on alcohol during 
pregnancy, lest they end up as we did.

Regards, 

P.S. I was at the same party with my wife where we both had too 
     much to drink that fateful day.

        An article in today's San Jose Mercury News tells of two plans
    authored by California State Department of Health and Human Services,
    Ken Kizer and U.S. Senator Pete Wilson (R-California). One would make
    substance abuse during pregnancy a crime, and the other would require
    the collection of statewide statistics on pregnant woman who use drugs. 
    I'll post excerpts from the article.
    
        The problem with both proposals, medical experts and civil
    libertarians say, is that they would probably frighten away from
    treatment the very women they are designed to help and would be
    unethical without a standardized screening policy or an adequet system
    of treatment.
    
        The initial hospital stays for infants born drug-affected cost
    California tax payers $500 million to $1 billion last year, a state
    study estimated.  Roughly 20 percent of the 500,000 children born last
    year in the state were tested as drug-positive at birth another study
    showed.
    
        Nationwide, the medical cost was estimated at $13 billion for about
    375,000 drug affected-babies.
    
        Kizer's proposal would add suspected drug or alcohol abuse by a
    pregnant woman or the birth of a substance affected baby to the
    Department of Health Services reportable diseases list, which now
    includes such afflictions as AIDS, hepatitis and syphilis.
    
        Kizer wants numbers, not names, so the reporting would not
    necessarily result in contact with the authorities.
    
        Wilson's proposal, introduced late last month in the Senate, would
    establish five $10 million grants for states that agree to the
    following conditions:
    
    o Provide treatment and education for pregnant women
    
    o Set up a comprehensive reporting system.
    
    o Adding substance abuse (including that of alcohol) during pregnancy
      to child abuse laws.
    
    o Establish mandatory three-year stays in custodial treatment centers
      for any woman convicted of such abuse.
    
    ASP

from .208
>    o Establish mandatory three-year stays in custodial treatment centers
>      for any woman convicted of such abuse.

Initial reaction:  

So, a man who of his own FREE WILL rapes/brutalizes/forces/terrorizes a
woman gets LESS THAN TWO YEARS in jail but a woman who is ADDICTED to,
say, alcohol and happens to be pregnant gets THREE YEARS.


GAHHH!

Tamar

ps My two year prison term assumption is based on what I recall the
average sentence is for a convicted rapist (not how long such a person 
actually serves in jail).

     In Maine, a pregnant woman convicted on a cocaine charge has been
    sentenced to 3 months of "house arrest." Prosecutors are appealing the
    sentence on the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals- the decision could have
    implications for the entire 1st circuit. (I assume the prosecutors want
    her to spend time in jail.)
    
     And for those of you who like to know "What happened to the husband?"
    He was sentenced to 45 months in prison, on the same charge.
    
     Two questions:
    
     What do you think of her sentence? (Is it ok that she was given
    special consideration because she was pregnant, and other relevant
    questions)
    
     What do you thnk of the prosecutor's appeal?
    
    ok- Make it three. :-)
    
     How do you rationalize the inequity of the sentences to the
    mother-to-be and her husband?
    
    The Doctah

    
    re:.135
    dear mr./ms. anonymous,
    thank you for your brave and moving statement of principal and may you
    continue to have the personal strength in the coming years.
    

    This was sent to me by someone who got it off the net.  I think
    it's fascinating that the "life begins at conception" concept is
    working for some people's ends, and against others.....I present
    this information as a matter of public interest, but it does not
    necessarily represent my opinion....(standard disclaimer)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
     [copied from _The New Republic_, 18/25 September 1989, pp. 18-21]

    ** IF FETUSES ARE PEOPLE... **

    BY WILLIAM SALETAN

    FOUR WEEKS AFTER THE SUPREME COURT REINSTATED A MISSOURI STATUTE
    declaring that life begins at conception, Kansas City attorney Michael
    Box filed a federal lawsuit against Missouri's attorney general,
    governor, and five other state officials for jailing the fetus of a
    female prison inmate without due process.  ``The state of Missouri says
    that fetuses are persons,'' Box argues.  ``You've got somebody in
    prison for the crime of another person.  The 13th Amendment says you
    can't do that.'' 

    Box calls himself ``your basic long-haired, liberal strict
    constructionist.''  He and other guerrilla lawyers have spent the last
    two months thinking up new ways to wreak havoc on Missouri's fetal
    rights law.  On July 24, the state's top newspaper, the _St. Louis
    Post-Dispatch,_ asked whether the law's assertion that ``life begins at
    conception'' entitled a taxpayer to claim a fetus as a state tax
    deduction.  Other papers took up the subject, and a subsequent
    _Post-Dispatch_ editorial added the question of welfare payments and
    Food Stamp allowances for fetuses. 

        ......
    
    Dodson went back to his files and found a client aged 20 years and five
    months who had been stripped of his driver's license under a state DWI
    law that covers people below the age of 21.  In a court motion, Dodson
    argued that under Missouri law his client's life had begun over 21
    years before the incident, making him legally an adult and immune to
    automatic license suspension.  A fellow attorney joked, ``I like that
    motion.  I'm going to get done paying child support sooner.'' 

    Dodson and other pro-choice lawyers have concocted long lists of
    questions about privileges and entitlements pegged to age: driver's
    licenses, drinking, voting, military enlistment, lottery tickets,
    admission to X-rated movies, elegibility to run for office, Social
    Security, payouts on IRAs and Keough plans--even mandatory retirement
    ages for judges. 

    The financial weight of these questions is not trivial.  If the 40,000
    or so Missouri citizens who are 61 years old today were allowed to add
    nine months to their ages, about 30,000 of them would suddenly becomme
    eligible for Social Security, at a total potential cost of $150 million
    a year.  Based on the state's annual birth rate of 75,000, the annual
    cost to the state of AFDC and Food Stamps for fetuses would be about $5
    million.  A tax deduction for fetuses would add another $1.5 million. 

    ..........
    
    Box says there are two dozen pregnant women in Missouri state prisons,
    in addition to those in city and county jails.  Pro-life attorneys say
    Box's suit is silly because the fetus has no ``liberty interest.''
    Since the fetus is confined to the womb either way, Bopp argues, ``It
    doesn't matter where the womb is.''  But Box says the stress of prison
    life is obviously bad for the fetus, and violates the Eighth Amendment.
    ``There's no way that you can adequately protect that fetus from the
    danger of other criminal women'' in prison. 

    Box says he's ``got another case in the works'' to sue the state for
    welfare and Medicare payments on behalf of fetuses.... 

    .............
    
    WILLIAM SALETAN is the editor of the Hotline.

    This morning on NPR I heard that the case of the couple fighting
    over the frozen embryos has been decided in favor of the woman. The
    judge decided that life begins at conception and awarded the embryos
    as would have awarded child custody. He put off the issue of support
    until a child is actually born. This brings up the interesting
    question of once the woman gets pregnant will she have to have all
    the embryos implanted even if she decides one child is enough. Will
    the father be forced to pay support for these children? Does the
    father have visting rights? liesl

    No, but his sperm does.
    
    						Ann B.

    A Waltham woman is being charged with vehicular homocide in the
    death of her 8.5 month old fetus. She was drunk. What will happen next? 
                                                    
    
    Kate
    

    I usually stay out of this topic but...
    
    >A Waltham woman is being charged with vehicular homocide in the
    >death of her 8.5 month old fetus. She was drunk. What will happen next? 
    
    8.5 months into a pregnancy? That would have been a viable baby had
    the situation been reversed (if the mother had died). It's a shame that
    someone should have to be burdened with court action at the time of
    such a tragic loss *but* what the hell was she doing drinking anyway! I
    agree with the charges. When will people learn?

    Gail

Is charging with vehicular homicide when a family member in the car died
normal? This is a sincere question.
	Mez

    It all depends. It is normal when one has been driving under the
    influence.
    
    The Doctah

Mez,

	If the driver is believed to be impaired, and anyone dies (person in 
any car involved, pedestrian) or is injured, then it is quite common to charge
the driver.  The charges are usually proportional to the injuries.  I don't
think it matters if the occupants are related to you.

	Conviction on the charges is something else...


	--Doug_who's_sister_was_struck_by_a_driver_in_a_club_parking_lot
	      _when_she_was_standing_next_to_a_cruiser_with_the_flashing
	      _lights_on_but_the_kid_got_off_'cuz_he_had_no_previous_record.

In civil suites the injured party (or representatives) charge you; but in
criminal suits the government does, right? And this is a criminal suit?
	Mez

	I was referring to criminal charges in .219

	Civil suits don't require that the driver was impaired, simply 
"at fault" (A gross simplification, but nothing legal is simple.)

						--D

	
    I read this in today's Gazette Telegraph (Colo Spgs) and thought it
    related to this subject.  I'm interested in how others feel about this.
    
    
    
    	Women's Job Option Restricted - Decision cites risks to unborn

	From the New York Times News Service:

	CHICAGO - If a factory job poses a potential risk to an unborn 
	child, an employer may bar all fertile women from those jobs even 
	if they are not pregnant or say they have no intention of getting 
	pregnant, the federal appeals court here has ruled.

	The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit 
	last week involving a Milwaukee company that makes automobile 
	batteries has raised alarm among labor unions, women's groups 
	and civil liberties organizations. 

	They say such a policy is sex discrimination because it denies 
	women access to high-paying, if hazardous, jobs.

	The court voted 7-4 that Johnson Controls Inc. was not violating 
	federal sex discrimination laws because it bars women from working 
	where there are high concentrations of lead. 

	Joan E. Bertin, associate director of the Women's Rights Project 
	of the American Civil Liberties Union, said of the ruling, "If the 
	theory behind this case is sustained or at least not successfully 
	challenged, it will institutionalize the second-class employment 
	status of all fertile women.

	Kim Gandy, secretary and treasurer of the National Organization of 
	Women, said: "This reminds me of the old protective labor laws.  
	They protect women right out of the good jobs."

	Lawyers for the plaintiffs said no decision had been made on 
	appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court.

	In its official statements and court documents, the company says 
	an abiding concern for worker safety, not fear of possible lawsuits, 
	prompted it to enforce its policy.  Johnson Controls has spent $15 
	million since 1978 on new equipment to remove lead from factory air.  

 	But workplace safety advocates argue that avoiding lawsuits is a 
	major motivation in the formulations of fetal protection policies. 

	Joseph Kinney, executive director of the National Workplace Safety 
	Institute, said most companies are absolved from any liability 
	involving a worker who is injured or becomes ill as a result of a 
	workplace injury.

	But because a fetus is regarded as a third party, Kinney said, any 
	illness or deformity could expose the company to major lawsuits.

	Carin Ann Clauss, professor of law at the University of Wisconsin 
	who represented the United Automobile Workers, one of the principal 
	plaintiffs in the lawsuit, says federal courts have struck down 
	similar employer policies in two previous decisions.

    This was SOP (standard operating procedure) at one DuPont unit plant
    which produced a very concentrated lead-based product.  The rest of the
    production plant had, to my knowledge, no problems with women working
    there.  But women were discouraged from being within a certain radius
    of this one unit plant because of possible air contamination.  The women I
    worked with (about 500' from the plant) didn't seem to have a problem
    with this restriction.  At least not that I know of.
    
    It should be noted that in this particular instance I'm not insinuating
    that the plant did in fact emit lead compounds.  They went through a lot
    of procedures to prevent or limit this, including extensive monitoring.

    I am left wondering what research and investigation has been done
    on the reproductive impact *to men* of being in a high-whatever
    (in this case, lead) environment.  I have vague memories that there
    are several chemicals which effect chromosome damage in sperm, leading
    to problems.  Is there any way to make ruling non-gender specific,
    but reproductive-danger-potential specific instead?
    
    There is a real problem here for society.  On one hand, women want
    and deserve the opportunity to do work which may carry high risk
    in their ability to bear normal children.  On the other hand, women
    may not know that they are pregnant (and ask for transfer out of
    the immediate hazardous environment) until the damage has been done.
    As usual, there is a problem finding the correct balancing point, which
    requires attention to individuals, while the framework we employ
    legally demands universal application.
    
    I wish I had a magic answer.
    
    Alison

    well, I don't understand why you can't just make people sign
    some sort of 'release' before allowing them to work there...
    men and women....stating the potential dangers and the
    recognition of such, and that no lawsuit will be brought.
    After all we all sign agreements to not release sensitive
    information, not sue for patent rights, etc etc...so why not
    this?
    That way everyone knows the danger, takes their chance, and the
    company is protected.  There are women and men who have no
    intention of having children (by choice, or nature) so why
    punish them for some silly court order which could be avoided?
    
    Sounds to me like there ought to be viable alternatives which
    allow both sexes to work wherever they want, and are capable.
    
    deb
    

    re:-1
    
    deb, I'm with you. Have them sign a release. This is not the companies
    place to interfere. I mean there is no life at this point to protect.
    (except the companies)
    
    Kate
    

>    well, I don't understand why you can't just make people sign
>    some sort of 'release' before allowing them to work there...
    
    The problem is that releases have historically been easy fodder for
    eager lawyers to invalidate. Court rulings have made releases rather
    useless, and at this point represent a mere formality to dissuade all
    but the most litigous among us from filing suit. An additional wrinkle
    is that lawyers can argue that the unborn child's best interests were
    not served by the mother in signing such a document; this gives yet
    another inroad for the less scrupulous to take advantage of a "deep
    pockets" company.
    
    A possible solution would be to outlaw suits filed for actions that
    occurred before the child was born. Unfortunately, it seems that some
    valid suits would be lost this way.
    
     There is no easy answer here. What is nearly undisputed is that our
    judicial system has to stop making litigation so profitable. As long as
    jury awards remain out of proportion to alleged damages, people will
    continue to pursue lawsuits at the slightest provocation. Not only does
    this tie up our judicial resources, but it also extracts a toll from
    companies that pay settlements on the most ridiculous of claims, rather
    than risk a possible tragedy in the courtroom.
    
    The Doctah

Lawsuits are a problem, but more of a problem to me is the fact that
women who do not plan to have children are not given the option of
having the job.  As a lesbian who at this point has not interest in
having a child, I don't see why I should not be allowed to have the job.
If I changed my mind about children, I would think that conspicuously 
posted signs in the work-place about dangers to pregnant women would remind
me in case I forgot about the environmental hazard.

Even more of a problem is the paternalistic attitude that seems to assume
that any woman can't take and process the information herself.
(But I do see the point that the company is just trying to protect 
itself from lawsuits later -- I understand it's not an easy problem.)

	MKV

    I agree with -.1 and -.2, but...those agreements to not sue fall
    apart in court because the signer can claim to not really understand
    the implications of the agreement.  They have to rely on the experts,
    the institution, to protect them.  These regulations arose as a
    result of lawsuits in which the child aborted as a result of the
    contamination (as I recall).  I don't fault the companies for the
    decision (mainly to protect themselves) until we (society) decided
    to make adults responsible for their own decisions.  We seem still
    to be moving away from individual responsibility.
    
    But I do agree that we should provide people with the available
    evidence, a recommendation, and a contract which they can choose
    to sign which holds them accountable for any and all damages for
    choosing to ignore the recommendations.  
    
    BTW, I think this should hold true for many safety laws including
    seat belts, helmets, etc.  I do have some difficulty over the issue
    of not obtaining an agreement from the individual who might become
    aborted by such exposure, however.
    
    Bud

    I sincerely hope this doesn't snowball - fertile women can't work
    near leaded air since it would be bad for a potential fetus....fertile
    women can't lift heavy things since it would be bad for a potential
    fetus....fertile women can't use video terminals since it would
    be bad for a potential fetus.....
    
    sheesh
    
    -Jody
    

    Well, there *are* differences between how men and women's bodies react
    within certain environments.  Chemicals *do* have different affects on
    people depending on their gender. For example, there's a whole class of
    chemicals called teratogens which have direct affects on the woman's
    eggs, causing essentially permanent damage. In the case of males, if
    the sperm is affected, they also tend to die within 72 days and thus
    the affect is not as prolonged or necessarily permanent.  This is not to
    say that there aren't chemicals etc. which don't affect males more
    noticably than women, or that some chemicals are equally teratogenic in
    both males and females.
    
    There has also been a number of discoveries over the past decade on how
    different people's genetic disposition causes them to react *very*
    differently to chemical exposure. There are several cases within the
    chemical industry of testing potential workers and limiting access to
    those who are likely to be affected by accidental (or unavoidable)
    exposure.  In other people these chemicals may have no discernable
    affect.
    
    Is this wrong?  I don't think so, but that's because I've done a fair
    amount of work in toxicology and know about a lot of the variables
    which can make a chemical toxic or not.  I'm personally not comfortable
    with the approach of taking this case and applying a slippery slope
    argument as the justification for why it was a wrong decision.

    <--(-2) Jody,
    
    Pretty soon women will have to get tubal ligations just to go to
    work. Those people who sell fake ID's to minors will have new business
    forging fake TL papers for Big Brother Employers.
    
    Pretty soon furtile women will not be able to go to L.A. or Denver
    or New York. Have you seen the smog in those cities?!
    
    Kate
    

	Come on folks!  A couple of years back, DEC offered to move women out
of some phases of semiconducter manufacturing (may be a bit hazy, but I remember
it being discussed in =wn=V1) because of a statisically higer incidence of
pregnancy problems, and I don't remember anyone screaming "male conspiricy" at
that time.  I seem to remember it being viewed as an example of "do the right
thing."

	Ascribe any ulterior motives you like to this sort of thing, but in the
long run, it protection of the stockholders AND the workforce.  A company has
an obligation to both.  I, for one, would be upset, as a DEC stockholder, if the
company was not protecting my interest and leaving itself open to lawsuits.


	The community theater group I work for makes everyone sign a release
saying that you acknowledge that you are not insured while working on a
production.  (It's very difficult for fraternal organizations to obtain 
insurance on members -- we do insure our patrons)  Our lawyer, who drafted the
release, freely admits that it can't stop anyone from suing, but that it might
help some if we ever land in court.  So far, we've lucked out.


						--D

    If I remember right, the move was voluntary.  And was indeed
    "the right thing".  
    
    But an across the board ban of women from any one job is
    discrimination.  It is also says that women can't possibly be 
    trusted to control their own lives in such a manner that they don't 
    get pregnant while working in a dangerous situation, and that they
    need society to protect them from themselves.  This is indeed a sad 
    comment on our  enlightened society.
    
    -maureen

    re: .-2
    
    Only one problem with that - most doctors won't give you one unless
    you fit the requirements - married, over x years of age, and have
    had your 2.3 (or whatever it is now!) children.  *sigh*
    

    I think what we are seeing here is an attempt to prevent financial
    hardship in the form of large settlement payments by certain companies
    that engage in hazardous enterprises. Women are seeing this as
    paternalistic because the people affected by this attempt at prevention
    are women (and the power structures responsible are primarily male).
    
    Instead of getting upset at the symptom (a company feeling they need to
    protect against potential lawsuits), why not get upset at the system
    that requires this type of action (the disease). Perhaps if mega$
    lawsuit awards were the exception rather than the rule, and perhaps if
    legislation prevented diffusing responsibility to the deep pockets, and
    just maybe if lawsuits were a little less prevalent this type of thing
    wouldn't happen.
    
    The Doctah

    
    I feel that .229 had a good point about the risk to all people
    working in hazardous areas.  Banning women but not men from working
    at a particular job or in a particular area is discrimination,
    but, in addition, there's questions about employing anyone in an
    unsafe environment.  The US workplace, particularly in the
    manufacturing area, is often outdated and poorly maintained.
    We still ask people to risk their long term health at jobs that could
    be automated, partly out of not wanting to spend the money to retool
    and retrain.  (I spent almost 9 years working for a company that
    designed industrial automation systems -- there's very little
    technological need to have workers in contact with hazardous
    substances.  Economics is something else again...)  Manufacturers are 
    using the current conservative wave of paternalism as a convenient
    hook for $$$ concerns.
    
    Ron  

    
    re:.237 <treat the disease, not the symptom>
    agreed; but let's not forget that discrimination against women *is* the
    disease. the complaint is not against companies trying to either a) be
    conscious and/or sensitive to the health needs of their workers or even
    b) cover their corporate asses. the complaint is against draconian
    measures that seem to have no regard or respect for adult women making
    reasonable choices about the risks *they* are willing to take in the
    course of their careers.
    

    JWHITE-
    
     The problem that they are trying to avoid is a lawsuit placed by a
    lawyer on behalf of the child. That's why women who are not fertile are
    exempted from the "draconian measure."
    
    The Doctah

    
    I definitely see law$uit$ as a major cause of this problem.
    
    I would personally favor the agreement, in which any employee who
    works with hazardous chemicals would have to acknowledge that they are
    working with some risk.  An orientation of some sort would also
    have to be held for new workers so that they would know exactly what
    chemicals they would work with and what hazards are present.
    
    Another necessity for this plan to work would be a judge and jury
    who would realize that these people were told exactly what they
    were getting into and that they chose to stay.  The lack of individual
    responsibility these days is something that really bothers me, and
    even worse, is the large sums of money that are awarded in liability 
    cases.  I coulld flame on about this for a while, but this  is really 
    straying from the topic.
    
    My opinion is that money is often the bottom line no matter what, and
    that it would not surprise me if the company was more worried about
    a 30 million dollar lawsuit than the health of an employee.
    
    Lisa
     

re .232, are you sure of your terminology?  I believe that a teratogen has
an effect on the developing fetus (e.g., Thalidomide or alcohol); and that
a substance that affects the germ cells would be a mutagen.

	-Neil

    
    re:.240
    i have no contention with the idea that a primary reason for the
    policy is to avoid lawsuits. my contention is with the reasoning
    that finds this policy acceptable.
    
    to perhaps digress, it seems to me that one of the ways discrimination
    works is to corece (in the broadest sense of the word) people on the
    basis of characteristics (usually physical) over which they have no
    control. we have no control over our race or skin color, or sex, or
    age, or nationality, or ethnicity, or sexual orientation. we do not
    have control over our fertility. thus, women are being denied a
    career opportunity based on a characteristic over which they have
    no control. this strikes me as discriminatory. if the policy were
    to place restrictions on women who were or who were planning on
    becoming pregnant, a characteristic over which they do have control,
    the policy would be less offensive.
    

    This is a subject near and dear to my heart. When I was a radiation
    worker I was over exposed while loading radium capsuls (these are
    used to treat cancer of the cervix). I knew it was dangerous, my
    training was quite complete. It was a requirement of the job. All
    the radiation therapy techs were young women. I just happened to
    pull the shift during a month that had a lot of cervical cancer
    cases. There was a 4 inch block of lead between me and the radium
    and I had to look at a mirror to see what I was doing though my
    hands and arms were exposed as lead gloves wouldn't have even slowed
    things down. This was done in a closed room the size of a closet.

    At the time I had fully expected that I would one day have children.
    Now I have the pleasure of being part of a long term study on the
    effects of over exposure. Makes me feel real warm and fuzzy and not
    too concerned about old age benefits. FWIW, I didn't sue anybody.

    The problem is that somebody has to do it. Will the rules
    "protecting" fertile women only apply for those jobs that men want?
    The female ghetto of the hosptial affords many opportunities for
    exposure to potentially deadly elements. The pay is so low I can't
    imagine men running in to save the women from danger.

    The work place must be made safer for everyone, both in high and low
    paying jobs. But then, I can't help thinking of the Army and the
    tests they did on innocent soldiers when they wanted to find out
    just what a nuclear bomb would do, or how LSD would affect someone.

    I don't know what the answer is, I know what it is not. It is not to
    closet women away from the world. liesl
    

>>>       <<< Note 735.242 by MOIRA::FAIMAN "light upon the figured leaf" >>>
>>>re .232, are you sure of your terminology?  I believe that a teratogen has
>>>an effect on the developing fetus (e.g., Thalidomide or alcohol); and that
>>>a substance that affects the germ cells would be a mutagen.
    
    Oops.  Neil's right: teratogenic substances are by definition those
    that affect *developing* fetuses.  I meant to say mutagenic substances.
    
    Jim

    Ah..a subject near and dear to my heart!!!!! 
    
    I've been extremely close to the "women/workplace" studies in the past
    4 years and I helped develop some of the DEC semiconductor training
    programs. 
    
    First of all, this is not a question of rights. This is a question of
    health. Exclusion from hazardous areas for pregnant females or females
    who think that they may be pregnant is prudent. Any female who plans to
    carry the baby full term should not expose the developing fetus to what
    is known to be dangerous. There are females in DEC who chose to work in
    the Fab until it was time for delivery. The three or four I know were
    monitored throughout the pregnancy and they all have had normal,
    healthy babies. If these babies suddenly develop cancer at age 3 or 4
    or 6, who's responsible?? DEC for allowing the women to work in a
    potenially dangerous environment????Or the mother who exposed her
    developing fetus to arsine, glycol ethers, silane, acids, solvents,
    etc.???? Then take it one step further. Will the parents later decide
    that DEC should have INSISTED that the mother not work in the Fab????
    
    Let's not make the company the villan. Women's rights advocates want
    women to have the freedom to chose in these cases, but are they willing
    accept the consequences for these rights??? I think not. They'll then
    turn it around and day that the companies knew how dangerous it was for
    women and allowed them to work anyway. 
    
    Let's take an example:
    
    Glycol Ether (Ethylene glycol): Found in many non-aqueous photoresists.
    Found in many household cleaners. Found in anti-freeze. 
    
    Short term effects(acute): Inhalation can cause nausea, headaches, 
    dizziness.
    
    Long term effects(chronic): Know animal teratogen. Studies have shown
    that glyco ethers have an abnormal effect on unforn fetuses. In male
    rabbits, rats, and mice, glycol ethers have shown to cause shrinkage in
    the testicles in both size and weight and has caused reversible
    sterility. There's a study ongoing in Belgium on 12 convict volunteers
    to monitor the true effect on the human male.
    
    Most comon item where glycol ethers are found?? WHITE BOARD CLEANERS.
    
    That's the day's sermon from the resident Safety Engineer. If anyone
    has any questions regarding health studies please send me E-Mail and
    I'll direct you to the proper people for information. Most of you have
    a copy of DEC's Health Study available through Health Services. There
    is also a follow up study being done through UMASS Medical Center.
    
    Ken

re: .246
These are good points, but what about women who have decided not to
have children?  Do you think they should be told they can't have these
jobs anyway?  This is where I see the question becoming one of
rights, not health.  There's no fetus, no pregnancy involved.

Analogy:  Job X is dangerous to people who are near-sighted.
You are near-sighted.  You, however, have decided to wear
corrective lenses.  Company says sorry, you're near-sighted, what if
you decided not to wear your glasses to work and you got hurt and you
sued us -- no job X for you.

	MKV

    Hi, another sidetrack.
    
    Back to the basenote.  The second case brought up in .0 (divorce case,
    fighting over 7 frozen embryos) was decided last week in favor of the
    wife, who did not want the embryos destroyed.  From the basenote, it
    appears that the husband will have to pay child support.
    
    Three questions:
    
    	1.  Do you agree with this decision?  What is your reasoning?
    
    	2.  If you agree with this decision (which was based on "life	   
    	    begins at conception"), DO you think that all seven of the
    	    embryos have a right to live, and that the woman should be 
    	    impregnated with each one in turn?  If not, why?
    
    	3.  What implications does this ruling have for fertility clinics 
    	    and how they currently practice?
    
    1.  For the record, I disagree with this decision because I think it
    sets a lousy precedent that impacts a lot of other laws.  It seems to
    me that the embryos were started jointly by the man and the woman. 
    However, they are not being "continued" jointly by the man and the
    woman and therefore he should not be asked to help with child support. 
    If the woman wants to "continue" them, that is fine; what I object to
    is that he is forced to be involved in that decision of hers.  Also, I
    object to the ground on which the decision was made, which gets into
    points 2 and 3.
    
    2.  I personally do not think that the woman intended to have all 7
    embryos implanted when the couple first went through the procedure.  I
    also do not think (although I really do not know the details) that she
    intended to implant all 7 when she started the lawsuit.  Given that the
    judge ruled in her favor because "life begins at conception" -- the
    same reasoning used to argue her case -- I do think that she NOW has a
    moral obligation to have all seven embryos implanted so each one can
    have a chance at life.  Anything else is hypocrisy.
    
    3.  This precedent puts fertility clinics into a bizarre position, I
    think!   They must frequently face this situation when they get a
    successful implant on the first try...
    
    What are your reactions to this ruling?
    Pam

The decision regarding the frozen embryos seems to me to be a stupendous 
example of passing the buck, by simultaneously sidestepping controversy and
refusing to deal with the messy implications of his decision.  Makes
me wonder what political office the judge wants to run for.

The woman gets custody of the embryos.  But she is not ordered
to do anything in particular with them.  Masterstroke!  The judge
has not outraged the pro-lifers by "destroying human life".  He
also has not incurred the full wrath of the fathers' rights 
contingent or the pro-choice movement or the non-active politically
apathetic mainstream, because he specifically did *not* treat
the embryos as children.  Great fence-sitting.

He ignored the really messy issues.  Are the embryos people or
objects?  Does the woman have the right to sell the embryos?  If they 
are people, does their mother have an obligation to implant them or 
find another woman who will?  Does the father have any input (binding
or otherwise) in decisions regarding which, when, and how many
embryos will be implanted and into whose womb(s)?  Who would get custody
of any/all resulting children?  Would the father be required to pay
child support for any/all resulting children?

Seems to me, all this judge did was tiptoe around the issue and make
a big, smelly mess for some other unfortunate judge somewhere down the
road.  

Beth