This is an excellent example of a case in which the true rammifications of the most basic of property rights (that is, a woman's sovereignty over her own body) is seen. If I were to go only on what is said in the original post[footnote]This sort of thing happens All. The. Time. so the situation is not unique. My own mother lived on two glasses of wine a day minimum, and didn't slow while she was pregnant with me. Of course, this was in an era when we didn't yet know the correlation between even light drinking and natal problems was significant.[/footnote] we could assume the woman intends to carry to term, but I wonder if she chose to do so or is being coerced by state, community and family. In this case she may simply be enacting a scorched-earth [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_earth] policy in response to denial of her rights to be in control of her self. In that regard, it is certainly an interesting tactic.
I'm pretty sure it would be impossible to enforce laws restricting the activities of women on the basis of their pregnant status. One could pass a law forbiding selling or providing spirit to anyone who was obviously pregnant, I suppose, but that would be about as effective as laws proscribing teens from drinking.
But even the consideration of creating such laws, or even mere policies condemning pregnant mothers who engage in behaviour risky to the birth could set some difficult precidents. What would the limits of such a policy be? Would we preclude pregnant mothers from other risky recreations, such as skydiving or mountain-climbing? Would we forbid them from continuing in risky professions (say working in a foundry or a construction site)? Would an expecting mother be allowed to set her own diet? Would she be allowed to drive vehicles or operate other heavy machinery?
Should an expectant mother be required to have a minimum income? Financial support from a family or husband? What do we do with an expectant woman who doesn't qualify? Force her to abort? Jail her?
Should we license birthing privileges to only those parents who qualify to raise healthy, well-adjusted children? Then, who would set the standards? Already, many communities don't believe gays or atheists should be allowed to parent. I'm not thrilled with radical activists, or racial or religious supremacists expanding their populations.
Normally, I would be thankful we have a justice system full of wizened jurists to work out such intricacies, but considering recent adjudicative failures regarding corporate personhood [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood], I'm resistant to trusting them with the personhood of fifty percent of the population.
I am surprised that so far (in 97 posts, as of my writing) in the is an unborn a person debate, there seem to only be two sides, that is: yes (personhood begins at conception) and no (personhood begins at childbirth), and not one has mentioned that personhood may begin somewhere along those nine months of gestation. Let me cover some of the basics:
Personhood at Conception has the problem that about 80% of conceived zygotes either fail to implant, or otherwise spontaneously miscarry, usually without the mother being aware of the process. If these entities are given citizenship at conception, there is no valid reason to protect them from induced miscarriage while leaving them to the greater risk of miscarriage by chance.[footnote]The pro-life community notes there have been about 35,000,000 abortions in the US since Roe v. Wade. During that time, there have been about 119,000,000 spontaneous miscarriages.[/footnote]
Personhood at Probable Viability is the point in gestation when statistically more than seventy-five percent of zygotes will gestate to term. The problem with this point is that there's no specific indicator that occurs at this marker. Nothing special happens. It's just designated based off statistics. This is about seven to ten weeks.
Personhood at Higher Brain Activity is the point, about 23 to 26 weeks, when higher brain activity can be detected. This is significant because we have determined already that a lack of higher brain activity signifies death, hence such a cadaver can be harvested for working organs. Our entire organ-donor system in the US works on this premise.
Biblical Personhood occurrs when Mosaic Law treats an infant equal to other human beings, and is, in fact thirty days after childbirth, before which parents are not allowed to ceremoniously grieve the loss of a neonate. Another interpretation puts personhood at first breath, as per the breath of life given to Adam by God, before which he was not regarded as alive, id est, a person.[footnote]Learn all about this stuff here [http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_when.htm].[/footnote]
In the meantime, my favorite solution to the controversy remains ectogenesis [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_uterus], which separates the gestation of prenates from the corporeal responsibilities of the mother. The era of the artifical uterus is almost upon us, yet neither side cares to invest time or money into its development.
238U.
