ethical question

concidering the attitudes in the smacking thread i am wondering peoples atitudes to people suing there parents (usually there mother for ovious reasons) for things done during pregnancy which lead to avoidable disabilities for the person

for instance fetal achole syndrome, babies who are born adicted to narcotics and babies effected by mothers smoking during pregancy

should these people have the right to legal recorse for the damage there mother's "choices" have caused to them?

i dont have a link to an actual story for 2 reasons

1) i have mostly herd of this happering in the US rather than Australia
2) i havent herd of a case like this in a long time


Now this issue is complicated because these can never be criminal offences and unless the child is born there is no way to enforce these issues. however the actual act of chosing to keep a child who is exposed to these could be concidered child abuse

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

It seems like a bad idea

I went with "No"; I'll take a stab at the reasons later. But the first point to make is simple: lawyers.

The second point is one of consistency: I'm pro-choice; what happens in utero is the mother's business.

From there it becomes something of a tangled mess. I'll see what I can sort out and give it a go later.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Take for example a teen rock star. The parents take control over them and their income when they are under 18 years old and do with it what THEY think is the right thing to do. If they were to take advantage of the income they could bankrupt the teenager without the child's knowledge. To stop this the teen must be able to stop the corruption of their money by their parents the only LEGAL way they can.....law suit. Without that course of action many young talented teens will and do get "used" and taken advantage of by their all to caring parents.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Is this the shortest post you have ever made?
:worship:

 

tiassa, im pro choice as well. That being said the choice is to either terminate the pregnancy or keep it.

There is a long history of people suing for injuries caused by things which are legal choices and the law surports those.

What im saying is that if a parent goes against widely avialable scientific advice and choses to carry out an action which they know will cause long term health effects for a baby they chose to keep should this be concidered negligence?

Now i can chose not to fix the roof of my house and thats compleatly legal and my choice but if i dont and it then falls on someone that is civil negligence which will land my insurance company and i in court

 

Well, if I stop to think about it, I might say I'm pretty sure it's not.

Nope.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

To consider the issue more seriously

Okay, more seriously ....

In theory, yes. But the complication is that women become, under such conditions, mere factories again. Smoking and drinking seem obvious choices, but what of other circumstances?

If a pregnant mother falls in the shower, should the child sue her years later for failing to put those little grip-tape flowers on bottom of the bathtub? If she is held at fault for a car accident that causes a birth defect, should the child sue her for not having her tires adequately pressurized, or for driving at all°?

When my partner was several months pregnant, we attended a Floater concert (the Seattle Alter debut) at the storied Graceland in Seattle°. A low, dingy room with a middling-at-best reputation, we should have foreseen the possibility of a fight breaking out. To the other, Floater is known among its fans for disdaining and even excoriating violence at its shows. This, of course, means nothing to those who might be seeing the band for the first time.

And, of course, a fight broke out in front of the stage. Apparently, some drunk moron did not take kindly to the security staff's intervention of his reckless moshing.

I caught a hint of motion out of the corner of my eye, and despite the strangeness of a fight at a Floater show, was moving before I knew entirely what was going on; it was something about the frenzied nature of the motion that set me off. Such as it was, I knew it was a fight before I knew it was a fight, and I also knew where we were in relation to the side door before I knew it was a fight. So I started moving my partner out of the way.

The bastard was a feisty one, though, and in surreal slow motion the fight arced across the floor, coincidentally following us until my partner was climbing a table to hop the rail into the upper section. The fight missed us by all of three feet.

Now, if that fight had landed on us, our unborn daughter could have suffered serious damage. Were that the case, should she sue her mother for going to a concert?

All of this tends back toward the issue I described with one word: lawyers. While something like smoking or drinking seems obvious—e.g., widely available scientific advice—the principle justifying such a tort claim is not so specific. Willful endangerment is one thing, but negligence is a broader concept. I have, for instance, seen pregnant women wearing high heels. Personally, I think that's crazy°, but I'm not the world's arbiter of sanity. Still, though, it is not impossible to conceive that an American lawyer could construct a case faulting a pregnant woman as negligent in prenatal injuries sustained when she sprained her ankle and fell against a parked car on a city street.

To reduce the mother's choice to "either terminate the pregnancy or keep it" becomes problematic. While you and I might agree that, having decided to carry to term, parents owe that decision careful consideration, I cannot ask a pregnant woman to sequester herself until birth and recovery. It took my partner months to recover, and were it not for her overriding desire to get back to taverns and hanging out with her cokehead friends, her theoretic seclusion from conception to recovery would have been something over a year.

Additionally, her psychiatric state wavered throughout pregnancy. As furious as I am about the infamous night I discovered I had a child on the way, the sheer irrationality of her drunken rage went well beyond her usual conduct when intoxicated. Judging by the subsequent months of irrationality that exceeded her normal degrees, I must necessarily acknowledge the possibility that her behavior was driven by aspects of her pregnancy°.

Compared to other horror stories I've heard, though, I think I might have been a lucky one°. And, in honesty, she was never quite the same. Her psychological decline continued as one might expect from excessive use of alcohol punctuated with occasional cocaine binges.

However, what this suggests is actually a psychiatric defense against the tort claim; we cannot, after all, expect people in certain states to decide and behave rationally. The result of that, though, would be a distasteful generalization that pregnant women are incapable of rational thought and behavior. I cannot abide by such a presumption, both in general and, if we need to be specific, because it undermines the woman's ability to choose abortion or birth.

Like I said, it becomes something of a tangled mess; technically, we're still on the point about lawyers°.

However, from the point of lawyers, we've also reached the issue of choice. And from here we also approach considerations that resemble a train wreck. What does that choice demand? In the end, facing up to fifteen months of isolation in pregnancy and recovery, the mental health toll on women could be disastrous. And facing such possibilities, what of the ratio of planned to unplanned pregnancies? A central argument of the pro-choice politic is that every child should be a wanted child, and this means a certain amount of planning. Facing reduction to breeder status for ten months, plus the debility of recovery, what effects can we expect on the mental health of mothers, and how will that affect both her parenting ability as well as her familial relationships?

Perhaps in Australia, such claims can be constrained to obvious things like tobacco and alcohol, but I have no such confidence about the United States.

The political logic of the outlook is, admittedly, somewhat cold toward fetuses. But I tend to stand for the child's rights upon its emergence into the world. As long as it is inside the mother, it is her body and her rights, not some arbitrary assignation to the fetus.

In the long run, it is possible that some theoretic construction might convince me otherwise, but in the meantime we would be opening Pandora's Box and inviting disaster to allow offspring to sue parents for prenatal tort.
____________________

Notes:

° for driving at all — I once had an enjoyable affair with a woman who had a son. One night, driving home, she suddenly needed to urinate. The subsequent conversation included details of pregnancy: "It's not so bad when you don't have a baby kicking your bladder," was how she explained it. So in our hypothetical, the baby gives a kick, the mother is distracted by the imminent possibility of pissing herself, and bang! she rear-ends the car in front of her. We should not drive when we take certain medications, and while there is no guarantee that a given pill will make you drowsy and slow your responses, the advice against driving is a safety measure. In other words, knowing a circumstance is possible ought—in theory—to alter one's habits. Thus, considering the increased chances of random nausea, kicks to the bladder, or even sudden hormonal surges that cause distracting physiological symptoms (hot flashes are not unheard of, for instance), and other possible detriments to one's ability to conduct a vehicle, should a pregnant woman be driving a car at all?

° Graceland in Seattle — In truth, I don't know what it was called at the time. It's been the Off-Ramp (a classic grunge fixture where Pearl Jam, under the name Mookie Blaylock, played their first show), Subzero, Graceland, and El Corazón, at least. I think it was either Subzero or Graceland.

° I think that's crazy — Then again, I think high heels are, in general, nuts.

° the possibility that her behavior was driven by aspects of her pregnancy — I have been known to joke that when people asked me how I coped with her mood swings during pregnancy, I shrugged and said, "I'm used to it." And, to a certain degree, that is true. The pattern itself was nothing new, though the magnitude and acuteness was something of a challenge.

° I might have been a lucky one — For instance, I once mediated a domestic violence dispute that started with what both parties claimed was a genuine accident. However, they were quite drunk, and the situation escalated to the point that their eldest son, all of eleven, ran across the street to bang on the door at one in the morning to beg my help. As things settled down, and I let them talk out their frustrations, the couple came back to good nature and related the story that apparently, while pregnant, she once went after her partner with a ten-inch kitchen knife. I never had to put up with that sort of thing during my daughter's gestation.

° technically, we're still on the point about lawyers — And we haven't yet considered the possibility of workplace injuries, either. Should a woman continue to work during pregnancy? Should she be held responsible in a tort claim if a workplace accident causes a birth defect? After all, while the employer might be held liable for the accident itself, what of the mother's decision to face the risks of the workplace while pregnant?

A note for Ophiolite:

I'm pretty sure I've written shorter posts than my initial response to the topic, even barring the deliberate and smugly humorous such as my prior reply to your inquiry, contributions to the "Political Cartoons" thread, hostile one-liners, and posts in "The Menagerie". However, I'm not sure where to start looking for them, so it seemed at the time worthwhile to offer a one-word denial. Please forgive my flippancy.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

LOL, Prenatal, NOT parental!

 

ok tiassa, what about after the child is born do you still have the same rights to be as negligent without redress?

Of course in the case your talking about there would be no hope in hell of a lawsuit being successful simply because it was outside anyones control. If we were to exstend the example a little further and say that insted the child was with you insted of its pregant mother and in trying to get her away from the dangerious situation SHE triped and hit her head. Its ovious this would be concidered to be an acident and though the venue maybe liable if there was other factors like negligence on THERE part you did everything in your power to protect your child. In the shower situation yes there is some measure of mitigating the risk but the risk is low except viewed retrospectivly so again the situation is hardly a fair comparision of the damage caused by FAS.

If we take smoking as an example if parents smoke around there children they are not only potentually civilly liable but in some cirumstances (for instance if they smoke in a car with the child) can be criminally liable AND can lose that child for child endangerment

Now in the case of an unborn child which the mother has decided to keep does that child have the right to the same standed of care as the post birth child concidering that the mother has made a vollentary choice to keep that child.

I personally have no problem limiting the freedoms of parents in favor of a child especially when they have specifically chosen to have that child, we do it all the time. That is what the crime of neglect is all about, the duty a parent has to there child. In fact i saw a case recently where DOCS took out a court injuntion to FORCE a mother to get her child vacinated because its the childs best interests, not the parents which are paramount in law.

 

another example of parents being limited in there freedom to chose

a drug acticted mother gives birth to a blind child because of the drugs she has taken prebirth

After birth the child sits on a needle left lying around by this drug adicted mother.

The second is currently a criminal offence of child abuse (probably neglect, and child endangerment) the first is not a criminal offence

But what real difference is there between the two actions?

 

one is done to a person the other isn't

 

pjdude1219 i dont get your point

As i said im not anti abortion in the least but once a mother has decided to keep a child she should be responcable for it to the same level she will be held AFTER the birth.

I have herd that there are now laws in the US which protect a fetus from the actions of others. For instance if you punch a pregnant women that is not judged the same as punching an unpregnate women. Im not 100% sure on this because it was a story line from a TV programe where the women was to late to get an abortion (because of the unethical practices of her doctor) and begged her BF to punch her. She couldnt be charged but he was charged with a fairly serious offence (and not assult because it cant be assult if the action is vollentarly entered into by the person "assulted")

If this is true then it also strengthens the case that women owe a duty of care to the future child she is CHOSING to have

 

Politics and cacophony

No. This reaches back to the longstanding argument about what is or is not a person entitled to rights.

It is useful here to consider your point to PJdude about American laws protecting the fetus, as these are a source of much contention in our political arena. I would look at the destruction of a fetus as a civil rights offense against the mother; social conservatives want it to be the murder of the fetus in order to leverage their position that a fertilized egg is a complete human being.

We have enough trouble taking care of the people who are already here. These issues should be addressed in general; setting those people aside in order to advance a religious position is as unwise as it is unjust.

 

You seem to have some real issues with your mother. You said in the spanking thread you would charge her with assault without blinking an eye.

Now you are ready to sue her for something she did while pregnant?

Are you just itching to get back at her for something? or throw her in jail?

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

How? What are the symptoms of a newborn that was exposed to a mother smoking during pregnancy?

 

Shorty this has nothing to do with my parents, its related to a class im doing on health psychology

As for the effects of smoking they are mostly related to low birth weight and related illness acording to this artical
http://www.helpwithsmoking.com/smoking-and-pregnancy/effects-on-foetus-pregnancy.php

This one is on FAS
http://members.aol.com/creaconinc/fas.html

These are the symptoms:
FAS is characterized by a triad of symptoms:
Central Nervous System Involvement: The central nervous system is composed of the brain and spinal cord. Damage to this area must be demonstrated; i.e., mental retardation, severe learning disabilities, etc.

Prenatal and Postnatal Growth Retardation: The baby is born weighing less than it should. The baby does not gain as much weight as it should once it is born.

Characteristic Facial Patterns: There are characteristic dysmorphic features which appear due to prenatal alcohol insult or exposure.

 

For the record I have never smoked in my life.

Now to the article you posted:

This would mean that the growing foetus would be negatively affected by two different types of smoke. Once the baby is born, it would no longer be affected by the mainstream smoke that the mother inhales, however if the mother continues to smoke, the child will suffer the effects of secondhand smoke and become a passive smoker itself.

Well I know that Nietzschefan's mom smoked like a chimney before, during and after his birth. He has never smoked in his life.

As a result the foetus will not develop or grow as well as it should and this can lead to the birth of a low-weight baby and all the risks and complications that this could entail. A low-weight baby is more likely to be placed in intensive care once it has been born.

My sister in law smoked while she was pregnant. She had 2 babies. The first one was 8lbs 6oz and the second one was 9 lbs.

 

So?

 

my great aurnt smoked like a chimny and lived to 90 does that mean that smoking doesnt cause health effects?

 

I am just saying that there are alot of women who smoke during pregnancy that end up having healthy babies.

For the record I think it's disgusting but.......

My point is how are you going to prove that if a baby has certain defects or disabilities it was 100% due to the fact that she smoked? So how are you going to sue her for it?

 

shorty look at the symptoms for FSB, now some women seem able to drink moderatly and get away with it. I even had an argument with mum about doctors telling women to drink guiness while pregnant and she used the good old "other people get away with it with no harm". However if you look at the all the advice for pregnant women around currently they all say "THERE IS NO SAFE LIMIT, one drink is enough to give a child FSB". They dont mean every child whos mother drinks will get FSB but the risks are there only IF they drink