May 06, 2008 02:29AM GMT
Question
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Politics - United States
Should there be a law against pregnant women smoking?
Isn't that child abuse?
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raves +2 posted May 12, 2008 09:51PM GMT
Answered No
No. How many more freedoms would you like the government to take away from you? It starts with these borderline issues, and gets continually worse, and when you realize what's happening it's too late to do anything about it. It's the mother's decision to smoke or not to smoke, and more often than not, if the mother is just smoking cigarettes, the baby is fine. -
raves +2 May 13, 2008 12:11AM GMTSince becoming a PC society, citizens have been trying to lose freedom more and more. Everybody wants to create a law everytime someone does something that they don't like. What they don't realize is that everytime we take away a freedom, we get further and further from what this country was founded on. Sure some things seem meaningless but if you look at the big picture its not a good thing for us.
I'm totally with you on this.
I've read where some cities want to or have banned the baggy pants style. Our local news posted a poll question asking if we supported that. Overwhelmingly people supported banning a clothing style because they found it offensive. Keep in mind...there is no nudity involved.
If we want to hand our freedoms back to the government...they will surely take them. -
raves May 13, 2008 06:01AM GMTEach year, more than 280 children die from respiratory illnesses caused by their parents' tobacco use or from smoking-caused fires, and another 300 suffer from fire-caused injuries. According to a 1997 study, exposure to secondhand smoke also leads to over 500,000 physician visits for asthma and 1.3 million visits for coughs, and to more than 115,000 episodes of pneumonia, 14,000 tonsillectomies or adenoidectomies, 260,000 episodes of bronchitis, two million cases of otis media among children, and 5,200 tympanostomies.
Research studies estimate that the direct additional health care costs associated just with birth complications caused by pregnant women smoking or being exposed to secondhand smoke could be as high as $2 billion per year. More broadly, parental smoking has been estimated to cause direct medical expenditures of more than $4.5 billion per year to care for smoking-caused problems of exposed newborns, infants, and children, as well as to treat birth complications -
raves +3 posted May 12, 2008 09:26PM GMT
Answered No
While it's a stupid thing to smoke when pregnant we cannot legislate against every stupid act - this isn't a totalitarian society... yet.
Once we start passing laws against stupidity Washington D.C. and Hollywood would be the most restrictive places on earth. -
raves +1 -1 posted May 12, 2008 07:39PM GMT
Answered Yes
Not only pregnant women. Tobacco products are proven carcinogens responsible for thousands of deaths each year, including many deaths of people who have never smoked a cigarette in their lives.
And to those who would say it is an individual's right to choose to smoke, I would ask whether you think Plutonium should be legalized. It will kill you and everyone around you, but if you want it, why shouldn't you have it?
The only reason tobacco remains legal is that the tobacco industry spends a fortune on lobbying the Red State Southern Congressmen.
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raves +3 posted May 12, 2008 06:09PM GMT
Answered No
Privacy is the essential kernel of democracy. When religion dictates, via pandering politicians, that personal decisions are trumped by political considerations, we have no democracy. It isn't the interest of the State that prevails, it's the beliefs of the deluded. -
raves +5 posted May 12, 2008 06:02PM GMT
Answered No
Good heavens, no! More gov control, yikes! Supposedly it makes babies smaller, I smoked and my son weight 7 lbs11 oz when born - bigger? No thanks! I quit about 10-12 years ago just to see what the whole "cigarettes made me smoke" thing was all about - didn't feel any better (already felt good), saved a few bucks, and my hair smells better. Easy to quit, in my opinion but I do not believe that cigarettes cause all know disease. Just not my deal! -
raves +2 -5 May 12, 2008 06:57PM GMT30 years ago they didn't need social services, and you know why? Because the communities were strong enough to take those children and help them themselves. Rather than have some government funk sticking their nose in where it doesn't belong, the community supported itself and got those children to helping homes. Social services was just another way for the government to try and dictate how it's people live. If you like that, might i suggest china? they're in a similar mindset to you it seems.
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raves +4 -1 May 12, 2008 07:10PM GMTYeah, what's wrong with a mother flinging her infant into a wall turning her brain to mush...there is nothing wrong with that... And just so you know, the first social worker was hired in 1905. If people are not responsible enough to care for their own children, then someone has to protect them.
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raves +4 -2 May 12, 2008 07:23PM GMTBy a law that makes the mothers criminals for smoking? Nope, I don't. I would do everything I could through the media and doctors to convince that Mom to stop smoking, but if she didn't -- nope, no way. And it's not child abuse -- maybe fetus abuse, but you have to be born to be a child.
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raves -1 May 12, 2008 07:33PM GMTIn Missouri and 17 other states, the laws recognize a fetus as living at the time of conception.
On April 1, 2004, President Bush signed into law the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, also known as "Laci and Conner's Law." The new law states that any "child in utero" is considered to be a legal victim if injured or killed during the commission of a federal crime of violence. The bills definition of "child in utero" is "a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb."
Answered No
Absolutely not, no one or government has the right to legislate morals. It is all about education and morals, not making more laws.