zrra07@ncar.ucar.EDU ("Randall R. Appleton") (08/04/90)
Here is a thought. It is well known (outside of Jessie Helm's little mind) that smoking is bad for unborn babies. Therefore, I ask the folloing question: If one is pro-life, and wants legislation to keep these unborn babies from being murdered, should one also want legislation to keep these same babies from the life-long harm that pre-natal smoking can cause? Please note what I'm NOT asking. I am not asking about abortion; everyone seems to have made up their mind, and I am not trying to change them. I am pro-choice myself, if that matters. Randy randy@ms.uky.edu
rodney@ipl.rpi.edu (Rodney Peck II) (08/04/90)
uunet!apctrc!crx34!zrra07@ncar.ucar.EDU ("Randall R. Appleton") writes: >It is well known (outside of Jessie Helm's little mind) that smoking >is bad for unborn babies. Therefore, I ask the folloing question: If >one is pro-life, and wants legislation to keep these unborn babies >from being murdered, should one also want legislation to keep these >same babies from the life-long harm that pre-natal smoking can cause? Sorry I don't have specifics, but that's what the net is all about... I remember hearing about a woman who was tried for manslaughter or some such thing for the damage she had caused her child by drinking during her pregnancy. This idea seems to be along the same lines as what you are saying. So, unless I dreamed this happening, there are actually people out there who _are_ holding women responsible for this. I suppose there is another one of those fine lines somewhere between a woman who drinks and smokes heavily during pregnancy and gives birth to a child who dies before it is a year old and a woman who doesn't realize that she is pregnant having a spontaneous miscarriage before the first month is up (therefore probably not even realizing it has happened) from heavy physical exertion or some other such thing. Where that line is drawn will, unfortunately, be determined by what the general public thinks the abstract woman should be doing with her time. -- Rodney
buckley@reed.UUCP (Ken Buckley) (08/08/90)
In article <1895@apctrc.UUCP> "Randall R. Appleton" <uunet!apctrc!crx34!zrra07@ncar.ucar.EDU> writes: >It is well known (outside of Jessie Helm's little mind) that smoking >is bad for unborn babies. Therefore, I ask the folloing question: If >one is pro-life, and wants legislation to keep these unborn babies >from being murdered, should one also want legislation to keep these >same babies from the life-long harm that pre-natal smoking can cause? Yes. Several "guerilla lawyers" have brought similar suits in states where laws state that "life begins at conception." E.g. they have sued to have a pregnant woman released from prison because her fetus is unlawfully imprisoned. Another suit claimed that a man who was 20 years and 4 months old at a certain time was actually 21 years old, counting from his date of conception, and so should have been allowed in a bar or some such thing. --Ken Buckley
kd@sei.cmu.edu (Kristin Dunkle) (08/09/90)
I read somewhere else in netland (sorry, don't remember exactly where) that substance abuse on the part of the father before conception (obviously ;-) can have detrimental effects on the fetus. Maybe we can start bringing lawsuits against Daddy too... Oh, BTW, :-) -Kristin My karma ran over my dogma.
beckwith@sierra.stanford.EDU (beckwith) (08/18/90)
>I read somewhere else in netland (sorry, don't remember exactly where) >that substance abuse on the part of the father before conception >(obviously ;-) can have detrimental effects on the fetus. Maybe we >can start bringing lawsuits against Daddy too... And then when Daddy loses his lawsuit, throw him in jail for nine months? >Oh, BTW, :-) Sharleen