Indeed who does? But at the end of the day that's what's happening all of the time. Lost groups and cultures naturally find their way out of the system. I don't think there's any one head judge, but many and circumstances. Although this is a whole debate topic in and of itself. That's the funny thing, sometimes there isn't any right, but simple one larger group that stomps the others down. Hey it svcks, but hopefully they tried to give you some choices. People can be dumb. Just have to be on the alert and ever watchful, no one said it was easy.

What if? Your using a what if right now to restrict the topics your going to debate with me. What if tomorrow it rains, what if this happens ect. We do it all of the time because we know things are going to happen, and we knew the odds. Let's not be silly, the odds game dictates the child goes on to be a serviceable member of society. We can in fact "what if" the future, it's called planning. We do our best. So by being a serviceable member of society and on a massive quantum time scale like I'm thinking in then it's twice as good for society or just once. It can get confusing.

Never even crossed my mind.

true. thats cause and affect. and I believe in that totally. I am not arguing against the idea that opinions and beliefs do get oppressed. but the mood of this debate is that it would be acceptable and the civil thing to do by opressing some one as an individual to meet a popular belief. it may happen regardless of whethor or not it should, I assume that one side believes that its okay in some cases and I merely publicly disagree. I don't mean to suggest it doesn't or wont happen. it may happen tomorrow, I will fight it with all I got if it does.

whethor or not odds dictate a child will be beneficial to society is based largely on perspective in an optical prism since on pessimism and optimism. I believe that a healthy and productive child who grows up healthy and productive will only be adding to societies undoing. we both agreed there is a population issue, healthy productive children to advlts leads exponentially to more healthy and producing children. does that mean all pregnant women should drink to help reduce population and there fore resources? no. I merely believe that nature should handle these events in its own way, society always gets in trouble by trying to control everything under a crussade for whats good over all. and in this topic, the natural order is a careless parent removing her genetic contribution from the gene pool. society benefits from her neglagence.

it can get confusing indeed.

I think it's representative of the forum that this discussion has remained entirely civil. Good job.

Well it depends on the circumstances. In this one particular case, the willful negligence of the mother knowing her drinking can cause FAS is the thing society will be leaving behind so to speak. I can't say with any clarity on other things, those are different debates and topics. I'm just as likely to fight on behalf of society and the law as I am to fight for freedom of action.

Ironically only in the younger generation our hope lies. Peoples minds age, harden, and lock up on a biological level resisting new learning. Children are malleable, if there's any hope for society to change and learn that we need to limit our population it will be in the youth, not the old who created the problems. Not to say the old have no part to play in this. Once again that depends on perspective, they may or may not degenerate society. I doubt it though, we've got some time left. Nature... nature doesn't care. In billions of years the sun will explode and then there's nothing left, there's nature's opinion. I think it's invalid from a human perspective. Then again I'm going by the concept that you want to live, forgive me if I'm being biased. For this debate society must still exist to keep itself in check, and thus needs to live. No setting the boat down the river to see what happens, that's giving up. We learned how to paddle for a reason. Giving it our best shot at survival is all we have now, pffft makes it sound like it's a once only thing. Survive x and you survive forever, nope an ongoing battle.

Gamgee, if your comment of "what if′s ?" was aimed at me then I′d just like to say I′m playing the whole "what if" scenario thing since it does happen that people call me out as being extreme on the point I′m arguing for which is in this case that pregnant women should not drink. So I do try and at least explain my line of thinking which in this case included a lot of "what if" questions because we are basically speaking about restricting something now so that we can have a better future.

I agree with your point of view but I don't just wanna sound like I′m saying "I′m right about this and you're wrong, and I don't feel like telling you why!". But when I do try and tell people "why" I stick to one side of an argument it can get horribly confusing and the responses get winded and drawn out.

Makes my argument sound weak perhaps but at least in the end I can't be accused of at least trying to be politically correct.

Oh and lookey here...



So does that mean "mission accomplished" ?

That's the funny thing, if this were a real debate nothing would have happened. People wouldn't have discussed the truths, but kept their weak arguments to themselves and fought to see who could win the debate and nothing more. Ridiculous, there's a reason why science can be so slow, you need to talk about everything and consider every angle. I'm sorry if life isn't easy and there's no one absolute right answer. Politically correct? Okay.

PC Version:
LIFE IS GUD! PEOPLE ARE HAPPY! YOU LIKE LIVING SO DON'T LET OTHERS DIE CHILDREN! *happy [censored] song*

There's politically correct.

Edit
No it wasn't aimed at you, sorry for not answering that right in the beginning. It's 5:30 in the morning and I'm super tired right now. Stayed up just for this debate.

How is this even a question? No.

Honestly, I drink quite a bit myself and won't judge anyone else for doing so...unless they just so happen to be sharing that alcohol with a damn baby. Seriously, if you're going to get pregnant either have an abortion or act like a [censored] advlt.

I don't know much certainy either concerning hopes depending upon the malleabilty of childrens' minds, especailly since I have chosen to never have children. but I do speak from the perspective of a rare individual who had parents who were a balance of neglegence and providing. by which I mean that my parents fed and gave me a place to live, but they worked so hard to do so they were too tired to project their beliefs and morals on to me giving me a unique chance to decide what I believe for my self.

I will have to think alot upon the bolded section of that qoute, gamgee you actually blew my mind a bit as my thoughts have never covered that angle. all I can really do is react by saying that I believe that the human perspective is dangerous because as humans we have a volitile combination of intellegance and ability to manipulate the ecology of the planet and a deep seeded and instintual drive to put its own survival first may very likly lead to society becoming a xenocidal force.

but maybe we should get into this some other time as well, since we have come a long way from debating whethor or not pregnant women should drink in bars. can't shake your hand so I'll just say cheers to you.

:foodndrink: Aye to that, but I have faith that people will do the right thing and eventually succeed... with some poking. Goodnight folks I'm freaking tired, lucky it's the weekend.

If it ends up defending an unborn's right to live a life as a healthy human being, it also ends up as a debate on the mother's choice of abortion, which I'm not sure if we can get into on these forums.


But if a child has no rights until it's born, why should the mother give up half of hers to it before it's born? And it's not a choice you can do on the fly. Not everyone can directly accept their pregnancy at the moment of conception, but they come to terms with it much later. Like you said, a lot of things can happen during the nine months of pregnancy. But the pregnancy itself should not subtract any rights from the mother. If the child ends up with FASD, then so be it. The mother gets to live with it, but her rights hasn't been taken away from her. It's a sad fact of life. Some are born with FASD, some are born with Down's syndrome, some are born with ASD, some are born with some other defect. If we suspend the mother's choice of alcohol consumption to eliminate further cases of FASD, then following that logic, we should also limit the mother's choice of mate through a DNA check to eliminate Down's syndrome and others as well to make sure that the child gets to live a life as a "healthy human being". We therefore limit our freedoms even more to produce a "normal" human being.

We can't always limit ourselves to the "think of the children" morality. Especially if the child isn't even born yet.

Which is why I think it is a touchy subject but ultimately I′m inclined to agree with the more blunt view Gamgee brings up (granted I′m not very fond of his way of applying ad hominem when it comes to my style of debating to try and accomplish... something I don′t even know since I've pretty much been agreeing with him (or perhaps I′m missing even more out, rather tired myself at this point and might be getting overly defensive)), the mere possibility of a healthier child is more important than 9 months of freedom to drink beer and smoke.

Really you speak of limiting oneself from something, but is it really so horrible not to be able to drink for under a year ? And sometimes when certain conditions are met freedom must be stripped away. Unfortunately pregnancy is a pretty unique condition so I can't bring any other example to the table to view beside it, but there is a certain basic with nearly everything that has to do with one person being directly linked to the well being of another person, and that basic is that the person in charge has to be responsible and is to taken accountable for any harm done to the person he or she is looking after.

It's not entirely true that a baby has no rights before it is born, though.
The law (in most places) says that a child has no rights before it is born, but there has been legal precedent for people being charged for two murders/manslaughters for killing a woman in late stage pregnancy.

In the footsteps of Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative, I prefer to use an "additive rights" approach. What I mean is that you should strive to add rights, not subtract. Because once you remove one, the people that it concerns is not going to take it lightly. They will fight to keep it, just as much as people fight to be given rights. However, with unborn children who are on the brink of achieving personhood, you need to define when they receive their rights. That's when problems start to appear. One way of avoiding subtracting rights is to have the fetus as a "tabula rasa", a blank slate who doesn't have any rights yet. Then you only need to define when they receive their rights. And that is a matter for debate. Is it at the moment of conception, once it's born or somewhere inbetween. But once you give the rights, you can't take them away, meaning any way of terminating the pregnancy is gone. Therefore, the only way I see as to how to avoid subtracting rights, is choose that moment at the birth event or somewhere nearby.

As painful as it is, I have to side with the freedom of choice for the pregnant woman, in the hope that she will utilize that freedom wisely.

If, however, she ultimately decides not to utilize her freedom of choice wisely, then that is her freedom of choice.

Can't have it both ways kids.

I don't know what my opinion is, lol.

On one hand I live alongside the "everyone is free to do what he wants as long as no one is hurt" principle, however, on the other hand, is she hurting someone? When is the time that the fetus becomes a baby? 2 months in? 3 months in? 6 months in? When it comes out of the fetus?

I think I'll ultimately I'll have to go with "it's the decision of the mother", the same stance I have on abortion.

A business has a right to refuse service to anyone, however these waitreses(?) were not enacting a company policy but their owns views, and as such firing them was understandable. Maybe a bit too much (unless this wasn't the first infraction), but understandable nonetheless.

As for the other issues, i once again have to agree with Andy. It is everyone's own decision, which consequences they'll have to live with. Make the risks known, after that it's up to them.

Don't forget that medical advice changes all the time, and that different countries have different advice on the subject.

In the UK where I am, this is the advice given on the NHS website: "If women choose to drink alcohol during pregnancy they should be advised to drink no more than one to two UK units once or twice a week (one unit equals half a pint of ordinary strength lager or beer, or one shot [25 ml] of spirits. One small [125 ml] glass of wine is equal to 1.5 UK units). Although there is uncertainty regarding a safe level of alcohol consumption in pregnancy, at this low level there is no evidence of harm to the unborn baby. Women should be informed that getting drunk or binge drinking during pregnancy (defined as more than five standard drinks or 7.5 UK units on a single occasion) may be harmful to the unborn baby."

When my mother was pregnant with me, women were encouraged to drink Guinness during pregnancy to keep their iron levels up. This advice has now changed and women are advised to avoid alcohol altogether in the first trimester, and drink only sparingly thereafter.

That said, I can't think of any pregnant women who has drunk alcohol throughout pregnancy, simply because they'd just throw it straight back up.

Obviously pregnant women shouldn't drink ( any amount ), smoke ( anything ), inject or snort anything whilst pregnant. There are times to be trash, but while you have a helpless, growing human being inside you isn't one of them.

Edit: Not saying drinking makes you trash...Referring to the latter two. Smoking certain things would file you under 'trash' to me as well, but I'll spare you the details.

I'm assuming you mean doing that whilst pregnant?

Thank you.

The problem with pregnancy is that the advice changes constantly. It's not limited to substances, every year they tell you to eat more fish, don't eat more fish, drink more milk, don't drink more milk, exercise, don't exercise, etc. etc. The other problem is: they don't know the real effects of ANYTHING on the unborn child. They can make very strong associations linked to certain behaviours, but one woman could drink tons through her whole pregnancy and give birth to a healthy child, while another might have one drink once, and have a child with problems.

Regarding drinking, it is a major problem in the very beginning of pregnancy since that is when the brain and other nervous tissues are forming. Towards the end of pregnancy, the baby is just putting on fat and getting ready to be born. Two very different thresholds of "danger".

It was definitely out of line for the waitresses to deny. Personally, I did not drink while I was pregnant, despite my endless cravings for beer. However, it was that woman's (or women's?) right to order the drink. Who's to even say she was going to drink the whole thing? Maybe she just wanted the taste of the strawberries and rum, and you can't exactly order a "half drink", at least, not at any bar I've ever been to.

That's like saying the girl at Subway shouldn't ever serve pregnant women, either. North America has this hate on for lunch meats when it comes to being consumed by preggo's

Is that bad too now? Jeez I'm glad I was born long ago when none of this mattered..
poor kids these days...

Yes, the recommendation is all lunch meats be heated "to steaming" prior to consumption. The idea of having to warm up my cold sandwich meat made me feel more sick than anything else. I stuck to tuna and egg salad.

Does the tuna need to be steamed? On that note, why isn't fish considered meat by vegetarians?

No legs? :shrug:

So could I eat Ariel and remain a vegetarian?