Smoking Whilst Pregnant!

Dumbe

Ronaldo_Mconaldo wrote: »

When we had our baby what really annoyed me was having to walk past pregnany mums smoking in the door way of the hospital we were trying to get to. I couldn't care less what these simple folk do to their benefits ticket, I mean baby but if they have to do it then I don't want smoke being blown in the face of my pregnant wife or day old baby when we are leaving the hospital.

Surely whoever smoked near your baby or pregnant wife would have annoyed you equally, whether the smoker was pregnant or not?

Don't get me wrong but isn't your issue secondary smoke damage your family was subjected to at the hospital?

Which as a side issue no one entering or leaving a healthcare facility should be subjected to ( whether it be a baby or any other patient or visitor) in that instance the hospital should if it chooses to allow smoking on its grounds provide somewhere away from the entrance.


Thankfully in our society a women's right to make decisions whether ill advised or not are still her own, and she has the right to make the same choices as anyone else, whether she is pregnant or not.

A unborn baby does not have the same rights as a new born baby , and the women's rights always take precedence over an unborn child.

Most parents and members of society want what's best for their children and all children, and I don't think anyone is advocating smoking, just believing that as the law says every adult has the same rights to make choices .. One adult is not more equal in the eyes of the law then another, which if you ban a section from smoking that is the result.

If you ban everyone that is fair, so my point is ban everyone or allow every adult to choose to smoke or not.

monty-doggy

Dumbe wrote: »

I take it you are also against abortion. Which is also a legal right.

This is an entirely separate argument. If a pregnant lady is smoking, she has made the CHOICE of keeping her baby and therefore should do everything within her power to protect it from harm. Not pump it's tiny lungs full of poison which could harm it for the rest of its life.

fluffnutter

mummyroysof3 wrote: »

I don't think that asking a woman not to smoke when pregnant is saying the baby has more rights than her..

Of course not. That's not what I said. My point is about legality. It's legal to smoke, therefore it's legal to smoke whilst pregnant.

monty-doggy

Caitlin_Bree wrote: »

If a mother chooses to increase the risk of there being something wrong with her baby, (and it is a risk, not a certainty) she will live with the consequences of that (whether it does, or not).

And so does her poor child that is potentially disabled for the rest of its life, not to mention the cost of caring for such a child, and the effect on the rest of the family having a disabled child. How would you feel if you were born with a chronic disease all because your mother couldn't be arsed taking a nicotine replacement while she was pregnant with you? Not exactly responsible is it???
(I can't see anyone wanting that enforcement job... can you imagine trying to wrestle food from a pregnant woman?)totally with you on that one lol!!!

It's a difficult subject, but I truly believe that if the decision has been made to keep the baby,then the baby SHOULD have rights too.

fluffnutter

How would you feel if you were born with a chronic disease all because your mother couldn't be arsed taking a nicotine replacement while she was pregnant with you?

There is no way to be certain that disease X was caused by smoking. There are risks and there are increased likelihoods, but there are no certainties. Women can not be held legally responsible for the health of their unborn babies - it's a dangerous precedent.

They are told the risks and encouraged to do everything they can to minimise those risks. The majority follow that advice. Public health is a complex mix of rights and responsibilities. I think we have the balance about right at the moment.

Dumbe

monty-doggy wrote: »

This is an entirely separate argument. If a pregnant lady is smoking, she has made the CHOICE of keeping her baby and therefore should do everything within her power to protect it from harm. Not pump it's tiny lungs full of poison which could harm it for the rest of its life.

While I agree its a bad choice to smoke , based on the known ricks to the baby ( not to mention the woman herself)

I am not sure how you come to the conclusion that if someone is pregnant and looks pregnant they have decided to keep their baby .. You can legally have a termination up to 24 weeks , so just because someone looks pregnant does not mean they have decided to become a parent. I believe most show from about 12 weeks.

In any case it is her right to make the same choices as any other adult, the other poster put it very well..much better then I did.

If its legal to smoke , then it's legal to smoke while pregnant ..

monty-doggy

Dumbe wrote: »

While I agree its a bad choice to smoke , based on the known ricks to the baby ( not to mention the woman herself)

I am not sure how you come to the conclusion that if someone is pregnant and looks pregnant they have decided to keep their baby .. You can legally have a termination up to 24 weeks , so just because someone looks pregnant does not mean they have decided to become a parent. I believe most show from about 12 weeks.
this thread started with the discussion of clearly pregnant people outside a hospital, it's a fair assumption. There will always be a minority, but the discussion started as clearly pregnant women. You can't take on individual cases in a debate!well, unless you want to be here all year and put the entire world to rights

In any case it is her right to make the same choices as any other adult, the other poster put it very well..much better then I did.

If its legal to smoke , then it's legal to smoke while pregnant ..just because its legal, it doesn't make it right. That was the original point!

In any case it's a sensitive debate, and while I don't advocate removing people's human rights, I will always stand by that doing anything to harm an unborn baby is wrong. And there ARE alternatives. People who don't take them are downright selfish.

Georgiegirl256

In response to 'silly goose' (I tried to quote but it's playing up and quoted someone else instead), re the hitting your kids with a stick comment, well, I think if that was the case, social services and the police would be on you like a shot....because, that's illegal....whereas smoking whilst pregnant is not.

As much as I agree that it's wrong, and it does actually disgust me when I see it, my point is, what right do people have to go up and tell someone off, when they're doing some legal? Yes, everyone's saying "yeah but rights does the little baby have?" and yeah, I totally agree, but as I said before, rightly or wrongly, that is the mothers choice, and yes, unfortunately the poor baby has no say in this, but, it's her choice and she has to deal with any consequences that may arise from her smoking during pregnancy.

What I can't stand, and this isn't just about the above issue, is busybodies, who think everything is their business, and feel the right to tell you so at every opportunity. If its something illegal, then fair enough, for example if I saw someone attacking another person, I'd be on it like a shot, but to go up to someone in the street, or to make it known to them you think it's wrong, when they're not doing anything wrong in the eyes of the law, is simply interfering.

Dumbe

monty-doggy wrote: »

In any case it's a sensitive debate, and while I don't advocate removing people's human rights, I will always stand by that doing anything to harm an unborn baby is wrong. And there ARE alternatives. People who don't take them are downright selfish.

I agree with you that it's selfish.

But I stand by the fact it's legal and it's a women's right to make her own legal choices no matter how selfish..

And as long as smoking is legal then education and encouragement is good, lambasting someone for a legal choice is not.

fluffnutter

monty-doggy wrote: »

People who don't take them are downright selfish.

Yep, couldn't agree more.