Discussion

Hannah Barcenas

I strongly agree, that women who use drugs or alcohol during pregnancy should be prosecuted for child abuse. I have worked in an ob/gyn office and an office where we provided services such as, speech and occupational therapy for children with physical and developmental disabilities. All pregnant women are educated on the effects of doing drugs or drinking alcohol during pregnancy. Drinking and drugs can severely affect the child. If the mom choses to continue that way of living it is by choice. She is choosing to harm her own child and that to me is considered child abuse. When you see the affects that alcohol and drugs has on a child's development it is heart breaking. They have to struggle through their lives because of their mothers choices. Knowing that the mother continued her habit or addiction despite the consequences it would have on the innocent child she was carrying is wrong. For that reason, I believe they should be prosecuted for child abuse.

Lindsei Seabrooks

In my opinion, I feel women who use drugs, including alcohol should be prosecuted for child abuse. It should be a responsibility for a woman to protect herselffrom conceiving a child if she is unwilling to continue to abuse her body with toxins that will interrupt the process of a child's mental and physical development. It isnot the child's fault his/her mother has chosen a path that will be affective to the child. Not only will the child have to adapt to their abnormal disabilities that weredeveloped through their mothers selfish desire, they will also have the possibility of inheriting these addictions as well. According to the law any situation that a childis being physically, mentally, emotionally and verbally mistreated is considered abuse. It shouldn't only pertain to the parents or adults of a child who is in physical form in front of them. A child in the womb is an unheard person. Just as any other child, they deserve the sanity of having a "normal" life to live. Parents and adultsneed to take ownership of their actions while being pregnant as well as after childbirth. It shouldn't take a child being removed from a parent's custody for the parentto realize what their actions have caused.

Answer this question: "Should women who use drugs, including alcohol, during pregnancy, and have a baby who has physical or developmental problems, be prosecuted for child abuse?" Justify your answer. Respond to at least two other students.