http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1864180,00.html

 

 

The pregnancy police are watching you

 

In the US, women of child-bearing age are being advised to consider themselves 'pre-pregnant' at all times, by giving up smoking, drinking and drugs. What are the implications of treating people as glorified incubators, asks Diane Taylor

 

Monday September 4, 2006

The Guardian

 

When Regina McKnight, of South Carolina, went to her local hospital to give birth in May 1999, she prayed that the baby would be healthy. She had good reason to worry. Since her mother had been killed by a hit-and-run driver the previous year McKnight had begun smoking crack. She was naturally devastated when the baby was stillborn - and shocked, five months later, to be charged with homicide. Prosecutors argued that smoking crack had caused the stillbirth and that McKnight should therefore be classed as a murderer.

 

Article continues

Despite medically disputed evidence about the role cocaine had played in the tragedy, McKnight went on to become the first woman in US history to be convicted of foetal homicide by child abuse. An appeal to the US Supreme Court failed and she is serving a 12-year jail term.

 

In the US, more than 20 states now define drug use by an expectant mother as child abuse, neglect or even torture, while The Unborn Victims of Violence Act, passed by Congress in 2004, argues that foetuses are separate persons under the law, with rights independent of the pregnant woman. Any aspect of a pregnant woman's behaviour that might risk foetal health - except of course abortion - is therefore open to punishment in the courts. And last May, legislators in Arkansas proposed making it, not just a matter of social and moral oppobrium, but an offence worthy of prosecution for a pregnant woman to smoke a single cigarette.

 

New federal guidelines issued this year ask any woman capable of conceiving to treat themselves - and to be treated by their health-care provider - as "pre-pregnant" at all times. Women between their first menstrual period and the menopause are told to take folic acid supplements, stop smoking, stop drinking regularly, maintain a healthy weight and keep chronic conditions such as asthma and diabetes under control; not primarily for their own health but to protect any baby that they may or may not be planning to have. They're also advised to steer clear of lead-based paint and cat faeces - a problem for any "pre-pregnant" folk whose household chores include cleaning the litter tray. There is no mention of "pre- fertilisers", ie, fathers, taking similar steps to ensure their sperm are healthy, despite studies that suggest male alcoholism can cause birth defects in children.

 

The rationale for the guidelines is that half of all pregnancies are unplanned and that the US has a higher infant mortality rate than most other industrialised nations. At the moment there is no talk of criminal sanctions against women who fail to comply with the pre-pregnancy guidance but it's another worrying sign that US women are expected to treat themselves as incubators first, individuals second. And the onward march of foetal harm legislation suggests that it's not entirely Orwellian to suspect that women might, in future, be criminalised for any indulgent behaviour before a pregnancy - as well as during - that ends up harming their child.

 

Lynn Paltrow, executive director of the New York-based group, National Advocates for Pregnant Women, believes that hatred of women is at the root of the trend. "It's linked to 30 years of vicious anti-abortion rhetoric that describes women who terminate pregnancies as murderers," she says. "You can't have that level of hateful rhetoric and just limit it to abortion. Once pregnant women are seen as capable of heinous crimes like murder, they are dehumanised."

 

Of course, it's obviously far better for a developing foetus if an expectant mother gives up drinking, smoking and taking drugs. But while it seems no expense is spared to prosecute and jail women addicts, far too little is spent on getting them appropriate treatment. And the women involved in these cases are almost always those most in need of support - there have been no stories of children dragged from rich Manhattan mothers who choose to snort a few lines of coke before breakfast. Those targeted are disproportionately black and poor. And all the sound and fury about the highly prized foetus evaporates once it is no longer in utero: children of drug-addicted mothers are often dumped in foster placements, where study after study has shown they have little chance of thriving.

 

This attitude to pregnant women shows signs of crossing the Atlantic. The behaviour of expectant mothers has never been more closely scrutinised or criticised, with both Kate Garraway and Kerry Katona having been attacked by the tabloids in recent months after being pictured with a cigarette plus baby bump. And some sources have proposed measures that aim to ensure that transgressive women can't conceive. In a recent paper, Professor Neil McKeganey of Glasgow University, a specialist in the social effects of drug misuse, suggested that "paying female drug users to use long-term contraception is one ... incentive that we may need to consider if we fail to reduce the level of unwanted pregnancies by drug users by other means". In a separate development, Labour MSP Duncan McNeil has proposed adding oral contraceptive to prescription methadone.

 

Dr Mary Hepburn, who runs the Glasgow Women's Reproductive Health Service supports women with social problems during pregnancy and after birth. What she finds most disturbing is the blanket condemnation applied to drug-using mothers.

 

"The gap between the rich and the poor is growing," she says, "and so is the gap between the poor and the very poor. A lot of the problems the women I work with experience are caused by poverty rather than by drugs in isolation. A punitive approach towards them will drive them underground, which won't be good for them or their babies."

 

When it comes to drug- or alcohol-addicted expectant mothers, obviously the ideal way forward is for them to seek treatment. Even for the richest people, addiction is supremely difficult to tackle, but for those from the lowest socio-economic groups the depredations that have led to them becoming drug-users generally make it extremely hard for them to give up. In the current US climate, though, the punitive approach towards pregnant women - in which women have been dragged to prison cells, hours after giving birth to a healthy baby, still haemorrhaging but having tested positive for drugs - means that few are likely to seek treatment. Who would take that risk if it meant the possibility of prosecution, a jail term and your child being removed from your care?

 

As Paltrow says: "The US has a phenomenal disregard for the wellbeing of families. Almost every problem is seen as one of personal responsibility rather than social or community responsibility." And the punitive approach to pregnant mothers emphasises this, legislating against women who might otherwise seek help for their personal problems.

 

In the last couple of decades laws targeting some of the US's most vulnerable women have crept inexorably, state by state, across the country, and now the institution of pre-pregnancy guidelines brings the spectre of women facing even wider punishment. In the UK we need to be vigilant to ensure that, in similar situations, pregnant women receive support - rather than a prison sentence

 

 

 

This is a side of America i want gone. reading this has made me feel a bit sick.

:o insane!!!!

Sorry but Story by "The Guardian".

 

The Guardian is worse than prison planet for reporting on news stories.

? Explain.

Have you ever read the guardian?

Yes, its quite informative, lots of articles about all sorts of stuff.

 

Are you a Sun reader by any chance?

Sorry but Story by "The Guardian".

 

The Guardian is worse than prison planet for reporting on news stories.

 

Yes very true. they are way more innacurate and insane.

The Gaurdian makes FoxNews look Fair And Balanced.:stunned:

Your American comentating on an English newspaper!

 

I hope your being sarcastic anyway make your own mind up

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/

 

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/The+Guardian

 

A great quote about English papers from Yes, Prime Minister

 

* In Episode 4 of the second series of Yes, Prime Minister, Jim Hacker says:

 

"I know exactly who reads the papers: The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country; The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country; The Times is read by people who actually do run the country; The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country; The Financial Times is read by people who own the country; The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country; and The Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is."

 

Sir Humphrey: "Prime Minister, what about the people who read The Sun?"

 

Bernard Woolley: "Sun readers don't care who runs the country, as long as she's got big tits."

 

 

 

Anyway back to the story in hand - what do you think?

And people who read the Express think Princess Diana is still alive and that she wasn't killed in that tunnel.

 

When is the last time the express has had a day without ANYTHING about Diana being in it?

 

And I'm a reader of the BBC newspaper and also the Skynews newspaper;)

The gaurdian is pathetic. Its not accurate.

 

BBC is a very good source for news.

The 'skynews newspaper'....haha.

 

Good one :laugh2: ;)

I'd like to add that any women who uses drugs while pregnant should be charged with a crime.

The 'skynews newspaper'....haha.

 

Good one :laugh1: ;)

 

Yeah, they dont have enough conspiracy thoeries in it:laugh3:

Ahhh...

 

You had to go and be an dickhead didn't you?

Ahhh...

 

You had to go and be an dickhead didn't you?

 

Wanting children to be safe makes me a dickhead? man you're evil

Oh yeah, that's what I said.

 

You should just fuck right off into a hole.

 

I can't believe I ever bothered trying to be anything other than civil around people such as you, the things you actually think of are beyond belief.

 

Look, everyone....I give up with this rotten shit.

You're pure evil. no morals. I want kids protected by law and im a bad person for that? wow....you're the one who should fuck into a hole.

I want harder laws agaisnt child molesters too, guess im evil for that:rolleyes:

You are an idiot - complete buffoon.

 

You know very well what I was on about.

,,,,

I follow facts and evidence NOT theories that dont have facts or evidence to back them up..... you're the dumb one

Your into some sort of drugs right??

No. what are you smoking?

 

I follow the facts and evidence. you follow theories.

Your wrong......and we weren't even talking about that...look at the title of this thread for gods sake!!!

 

You always start with your BS in the middle of a topic.....like when you started talking about 'my theories' in this one after a joke about a skynews newspaper....

 

you are one leaf short of a cabbage at times.

I'd like to add that any women who uses drugs while pregnant should be charged with a crime.

 

what if they dont know they're pregant? One of the points in the article was that if you did drugs and didnt realise you were pregant you could be locked up. It makes the point that women will have to presume at all times that are.

 

I'm still waiting for reasons why the guardian - a newspaper that been round for over a hundred years (or so) is just as bad as Fox News.

 

To be honest its stuff like this and Bush's views on Abortion and stem cell research (the one he used his veto on what was it called?) that make me want to believe the 9/11 theories.