Ok, here's the hypothetical dilemma I have for you (got it from Law & Order.) There is a pregnant woman, she's 6 weeks pregnant and she is not going to have an abortion. She is a known alcoholic. She has a previous child that was given up for adoption born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. The child is mentally r****ded. She knows this is a possibility for her current child, but continues to drink, although she claims she'll try to quit. Should the state intervene on behalf of the unborn child by forcing the mother into some sort of monitored rehabilitation? For ease of answering, none of the facts are in dispute. It is known that she is an alcoholic, and has been seen by officers of the court / police drunk while pregnant with this child.
For clarification: by intervene on the behalf of the child, do you mean force the mother to have an abortion, or force the mother into some kind of rehabilitation? I personally vote no on either, because I'm a consistent supporter of freedom. I know freedom scares some people, but I think it's the most important value we can have.
I'm also a "supporter of freedom," which is exactly why one should support intervention. Why must the child lose its freedom to life and health? If there are externalities associated with an individual's freedom, government intervention is required. Should we not take away an individual's freedom to murder?
That's how I want to think too...because I suppose I do support a woman's right to choose to have the child or not... But in reality I just can't stomach a woman choosing to have a child yet at the same time choosing (either consciously or by refusing to get help) to severely damage their own child.
I'm looking forward to the day when the gov intervenes in behalf of everyone with government prescribed medicine to be taken at the at the required intervals. The blue pills are yummy.
This is the part of the situation that puzzles me. (without revealing my own personal views) Should one support the right of the child to be born healthy? If one does, then is the state granting rights to the unborn child that it has previously been reluctant to do? For example, if you are willing to say the child has a right to be born healthy, are you not by extension granting that the child has the right to be born in the first place? It's a very interesting debate for me.
Should we lock up people who smoke around their children? Those children are losing their "freedom to health". I know I'm clearly using a slippery slope defense, but the slippery slope of precedent is how many of our freedoms have been taken away.
Agreed. My wife and I debated this. She felt that the government should intervene to protect the unborn child, but then as I thought about it, I thought...where would it end? Couldn't the government then use that to ultimately say that a mother who drives above the speed limit should be locked up while pregnant to ensure the health of the unborn child? The slippery slope defense is quite valid here imo. The other side of the argument has just as many valid points though.
Certainly a slippery slope exists, but it exists for essentially all the laws we have today. Are you saying that the risk that this child will get Fetal Alcohol Syndrome should not be thrwarted in order to potentially uphold the freedom of a parent one day smoking around her children? Remember, this is a life we are talking about. The slippery slope does not justify the child's life being ruined.
What about the addiction aspect? She is obviously an addict/alcoholic. But speeding? Can one get addicted to that? Psychologically, phisically, or otherwise? Just throwing that out there....
In my opinion, the right of the child to be born into a state that respects individuals' privacy and civil liberties is more important the right of the child to be born with a lesser risk of mental or physical handicap.
I can see the other side of this coin though. As a compromise I'd settle for simply jailing this woman after she does it again.
can we abort the woman and then not have the need for this discussion? it would cause some prevention in that other dumb whores who drink while pregnant would then hopefully be deterred. i don't support the government stepping in, but man what a stupid b****... if this weren't hypothetical that is.
Oh, so it's better to be mentally r****ded and have privacy than it is to be healthy and not? Are you kidding? When does ideology stop and reason start?
We live in an imperfect world. There are countless children being born today all over the world that will have disabilities, disabilities we could have prevented had we decided to spend the money, send the people, and make different choices giving out foreign aid. Yet people get bent out of shape over a single individual portrayed on a TV show. Tragic? Of course, but I think it is far more tragic to spend tens of billions of dollars on a war that didn't have to be, to be sending billions in military "aid" to countries like Egypt, which is a dictatorship in everything but the name. Just throwing that out there. Impeach Bush.
