David Drake: No Smoking For Pregnant Women?

Friday, June 23, 2006

No Smoking For Pregnant Women?

Warning: This Post Includes A Graphic Image

Hmmmmm, HERE's an interesting concept in an Op/Ed piece by Kathleen Parker: Should It Be Against The Law For Mothers-To-Be To Smoke Cigarettes?

It seems like a reasonable law to me. We hear day in and day out the horrible and noxious effects from first-hand and second-hand smoke. And no doubt about it, a fetus would experience cigarette smoke in a first-hand manner.

But Ms. Parker doesn't seem to think that legislating this type of law is...fair:

Now the anti-tobacco jihadists, having helped ban smoking in most public and many private places, have turned their attention to the most private space of all - the womb.

That very personal place where humans incubate could be the next battlefield between smokers and those who have never uttered the words: "It's none of my beeswax."

This latest brainstorm comes from Arkansas, where Rep. Bob Mathis successfully shepherded legislation making it unlawful to smoke in cars in which small children are passengers.

Representative Mathis is a DEMOCRAT, by the way, and we certainly know how anxious all the Commiecrats are to protect us from "everything."

Now, I'm all for adults of legal age being able to make decisions about what they want to do to their own bodies in terms of smoking, drinking and what-have-you. But, as the legal community had shown us through the years, it's different when a health risk impacts someone other than the primary self-inflictor. Second-hand smoke? "My god, man, don't blow that second-hand smoke towards me!"

Ms. Parker:

John Banzhaf [is] the heavyweight George Washington University law professor who for years has led the anti-smoking brigade.

More recently, he's best known for leading the charge against fast-food restaurants that serve fat-laden foods to unsuspecting, um, fat people - otherwise known as people who eat too much and wouldn't read a nutritional label if it had a cherry on top.

Banzhaf likes to sue people, in other words, and he's been enormously successful. Which is to say, pregnant smokers, beware.

And beware they should be. Pregnant women who smoke are endangering the life of their child.

Ms. Parker:

In a final bit of irony, the move to prohibit smoking while pregnant would seem to lend strength to the argument that a fetus is a human being entitled to all the rights and privileges accorded personhood.

Huh...what? "...Seem to lend strength to the argument that a fetus is a human being..." Well, Parker says so in an earlier sentence in the same article: "That very personal place where HUMANS incubate."

Well, what is a fetus, then? Is it a kangaroo in the womb? Is it a Baby Ruth candy bar inside there?

Below is a picture from Abortion TV of a partial-birth aborted "fetus". You tell me...does it resemble a human being or...some other type of creature:

Does the above image make you feel queasy? Uncomfortable? Do you want to look away? Good, because that's the intention of why I included it in this piece.

It doesn't take a genius to define that the fetus of a human being is human, no matter how much the Pro-Baby-Killer crowd wants to try to make the public think otherwise.

And, for the record, I don't think all abortions should be illegal. I think they should be available and medically safe for when the mother's life is in jeopardy, and available in cases of rape and incest. I DON'T think that abortion should be used as a method of birth control and I am dead-set against Partial Birth abortion. And let's not kid ourselves, the number of abortions for cases of rape and incest are very small and few in numbers.

We regulate all types and kinds of behavior to protect third parties. Some cities have no-smoking laws in parks and other outside areas such as beaches. Adults can be arrested for providing alcohol to minors. Children under a certain age must be belted into child-travel seats in cars. Children under a certain age must wear a life preserver in a boat.

It always comes down to protecting "The Children", because they are unable to defend themselves against so many things.

Women are arrested for excessive alcohol consumption and for taking illegal drugs under the auspices of endangering their baby-to-be; it may be rare but it happens.

Should a "fetus" be treated any differently from a cigarette smoking mother?

// posted by David Drake @ 12:01 AM

Comments:

It is ironic that the rabid anti-smoking enforcement crowd, which tends to be liberal, is so concerned about the effect of smoking on the unborn child. The mother may not "choose" smoking and drinking for her baby, but is completely free to "choose" to kill the baby by chopping him or her into pieces for any reason at all. I'm just saying . . .

# posted by

moderator : 6:11 PM, June 22, 2006

Leigh...you bring a wonderful point to the table.

HEY - let me ask you your opinion...way in the back of my head is a little voice that tells me Kathleen Parker's column may have been satire. But 99% of me tells me no, she meant it as she wrote it. Do you see any room for satire in what she wrote?

Thanks!

# posted by

David Drake : 6:15 PM, June 22, 2006

i could have done without the partial birth image, dave. but i understand whyyou used it.

# posted by

Anonymous : 6:40 PM, June 22, 2006

I can see why you have picked up the satire vibe - and she may have intended it that way. I really thought the point of the article was going to be to oppose stupid litigation to oppose legislating away bad behavior du jour, and I was following her point along the way. But the last paragraph threw me off, because I don't make the moral connection between smoking around a child and killing one.

# posted by

moderator : 8:22 PM, June 22, 2006

Thanks EC - I know from your previous comments you are "getting" the bigger picture.
---

Leigh, yeah, like I said, I don't know if she intends satire...if so...it's really subtle. Geeez, I don't think that my satire is even THAT subtle when I run a post with it.

Thanks for your input...as always.

# posted by

David Drake : 1:06 PM, June 23, 2006

David Drake

Friday, June 23, 2006

No Smoking For Pregnant Women?

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