Is Drinking While Pregnant A Crime Against The Unborn Baby?

There has been a court case going on for some time which is now set to be heard in the Court of Appeal.

A council located somewhere in the north-west of England, which cannot be named for legal reasons, has argued that a six year old girl who was born with Foetal Alcohol Syndrome should be given a compensation payment for being the victim of a crime.

A judge argued that because the child was unborn at the time, she was not legally a person and so a crime against her could not have been committed.

However, the case has reignited the debate over drinking in pregnancy. Is drinking too much during pregnancy a crime against the unborn baby?

Readers, I can understand where the case is coming from. Let me make one thing clear- I do not think drinking, or smoking, for that matter, during pregnancy when you know you are pregnant is a good idea.

However, the website drinkaware.co.uk says that timing is an important factor in the development of Foetal Alcohol Syndrome. The site says:

A baby’s facial features are formed during weeks six to nine of pregnancy. Professor Neil McIntosh, an Edinburgh-based neonatologist, says scientific evidence shows that mothers who drink during this three-week window are more likely to have babies with the facial deformities associated with FAS. Damage to the baby’s organs through drinking is most likely to happen in the first three months.

Readers, I have lost count of the number of women I have heard of who have not known they were pregnant for at least the first three months of pregnancy. In some cases, women do not know they are pregnant until they go into labour.

If those women choose to drink while being pregnant and not knowing it, readers, how can they be accused of committing a crime against their unborn baby?

Yet, readers, I fear, cases like this one will lead to this accusation being made against women who drank while not knowing they were pregnant- whether their child is born disabled or not. I fear cases like this one will lead to women who drank while not knowing they were pregnant being blamed for any disabilities their child may unfortunately be born with.

There is another thing that worries me deeply about this debate. Drinkaware.co.uk says that FAS causes Cerebral Palsy.

That may well be very true, readers, but Cerebral Palsy, in most cases, is caused by a difficult labour. Cerebral Palsy, in most cases, cannot be detected during pregnancy, and there is nothing that can be done during pregnancy to prevent it. How do I know this? I have known it since the day I was born- with Cerebral Palsy.

I don’t know whether my mother drank while she was pregnant with me. But I do know that I would have had CP whether she did or not. I have never blamed, and will never blame, my mother for my disability.

However, I fear that cases like this one may lead to women whose children are born with CP as a result of a difficult labour, who may also have been drinking during the early  stages of pregnancy, being blamed for their child’s disability.

This could have all kinds of serious consequences for mothers of disabled children, and within their  families.

I imagine a mother who drank while not knowing she was pregnant, who went on to have a child with CP as a result of a difficult labour, would feel very guilty at the thought that she might have prevented her child’s disabilities by not drinking during her pregnancy- even though there would not be any truth in this thought at all.

Family blame could affect the relationship between the parents of a child with CP, and could even lead to that relationship breaking down. Worse, relationships between the mother and any non disabled children she may have could be affected when they start blaming her for causing their sibling’s disability.

A child with CP who does not understand the causes of their disability may, when they hear that their mother drank during her pregnancy,  start to blame and resent their mother for somehow causing their disability. This will affect this most important relationship.

Worst of all, mothers who fear Foetal Alcohol Syndrome may not drink any alcohol at all during pregnancy or when trying for a pregnancy- and may still, unfortunately, have a child born with CP or another lifelong condition.

So, readers, while I do not personally agree with drinking while you know you are pregnant, I also do not personally think that drinking while pregnant can be considered a crime.

As for compensation payments, if there is no blame, there is no reason to ask for a compensation payment.