Reply #59: You're still not seeing the crucial distinction [View All]

between thinking something is not OK and making it illegal.

I don't think it's OK to do drugs and drink while you're pregnant and if I saw friends of mine doing it, I'd discourage them.

It's a slippery slope when you start making laws about this, though. Where is the line? Women who don't get enough folic acid in the first few weeks of a pregnancy are at greater risk of having kids with MS. So should we throw women in jail for not getting enough folic acid? Should we throw them in jail for eating too many hot fudge sundays? The fact is that there are millions of behaviors that can affect the fetus during pregnancy and create a less than optimal outcome. Where do we decide where the line is for an acceptably healthy baby vs. an unacceptably healthy baby and how do we decide the degree of the mother's culpability? Or should all women be forced to follow tight nutritional and exercise regimines and be forced to take vitamins and be banned from certain types of food and not be allowed to have sex in the third trimester, etc. etc. etc? Can you really not see how legislating women's behavior during pregnancy with respect to the health of the fetus unleashes the whirlwind?