Ysee, the problem is that you've then reduced the woman to an uterus.
Oh, please, come on. You know none of this reduced the woman to anything.
Reduced the woman to an uterus? Really?
Let's say there were people who were carving their own livers out of their bodies becuase for some reason they enjoy doing it and the state would want to stop that, the state hasn't reduced them to livers.
How much different is that argument from if I'd say your stand reduces the growing babies into something?
When you impose sanctions on that behaviour, the state is, quite simply, saying that the fetus > the carrier. If one is willing to force rehabilitation on someone for that, the state is not only saying that the contents of the uterus matter more than the person, but also that the person's body belongs not to the person, but to the state. At that point, one might as well criminalize suicide.
What's wrong with forced rehabilitation? Is it always bad?
The state even forces people in jail if they have done bad enough things against the law. That's ok. I think forced rehabilitation for heavy hard drug users would also be ok. As a matter of fact, I would have them forced for rehabilitation instead of forced in jail.
I would like to see sex offenders to go to forced rehabilitation instead of regular jail. I would like to see rehabilitation systems take over regular jail sentences in many situations. I would like to see heavy hard drug users get rehabilitation instead of jail, no matter what gender they are. And if they are carrying a child, I think it's even more important. Not because the uterus is more important than the woman but because instead of only one, there are now two entities who are directly affected from the drug use.
I don't think suicides or suicide attempts should be criminalized, but I would like to see people who've attempted suicide to receive therapy as they absolutely need someone to talk to, and I feel the state should be obligated in ensuring the person gets that.
Additionally, you, oddly, exempted binge eating from the list of harmful conducts,
even though it is just as devastating as all the other practices, if not even more so, given the extent of the effects. Thus, if one wishes to protect the fetus, one would have to regulate what pregnant women eat. Would one be willing to do that? If not, why? It is just as harmful as drinking, smoking or using drugs. If yes, fair enough, but then.... i`ll just ask if women should be allowed inside a car while pregnant, then, given that one is aware of the increased risk that it offers to the fetus. Or if they should be allowed to bungee-jump. Or skydive. Or swim. Or any activity that is riskier than staying at home in bed, after all, all of those things increase the risk of harm to the fetus, so what should be the cutoff point?
I, for one, would love to see a world where people refuse to sell an ice cream sandwich to a pregnant person.
Yeah, I skipped the binge eating part because that sounded like those bungee-jump examples than anything relatable to actual drug or alcohol use - I felt it was more like a "gotcha" example. Almost mentioned why I'm skipping it, but didn't.
Now, I admit that as the study you linked suggests that it's bad for the baby too, maybe it's rightfully among alcohol, cigarette and drug use. And if that's the truth, I think there should be efforts from the state to have some regulation on that too.
It's just that even if a person is fat and is seen eating food, it's not as easy to point out the person is doing it harmfully than if a person is smoking or drinking. Eating is absolutely necessary for people. Smoking, drinking alcohol or using drugs absolutely isn't. Eating an ice cream sandwhich in itself doesn't harm anyone. A single cigarette on the other hand is in itself harmful.
I'm not suggesting forced rehabilitation for drinkers or alcohol users, or for binge eaters. I'm suggesting it for the hard drug users. Even though it's hard to get rid of the habit of smoking and drinking, they are still easier for a person to get rid of than hard drug use is. People can slowly reduce smoking and drinking and end up stopping them for good, but it isn't even nearly as easy with hard drug use. Drug use also has other effects in general life other than just the addiction. Having that drug use of the mother continue into the post-birth life of the child is terrible too. Gladly then the drugs don't at least directly affect the child anymore, but it's still awful.
Comparing this to things like swimming is just ridiculous. While you could have your roof to drop on your head and killing yourself and the baby at the same time, dangers like that are way different from inhaling or injecting chemicals that directly have an effect to the entity inside the person.
I feel like those examples are some sort of a reverse version of the slippery slope fallacy. That for some reason if you want to regulate something you have to regulate everything or not regulate anything at all because one thing is always worse or as bad or almost as bad as the other. And if you are for something, you have to be for the other things too. That for some reason the other points are now invalid because I don't take every other situation into concideration and be against them as well, all the while I'm reducing women into bunch of walking uteruses just to give the discussion a harder edge.
One more time, it's not about the content of the uterus being more important than the woman. It's about there being two entities instead of one. The other entity just happens to live and grow inside of the other. That's where the entity lives. The entity didn't choose to be there. The mother didn't necessarily choose the entity to live there either. But that's what the situation is and that most likely is never ever going to change for most of the people in the whole future of mankind. People can say it's unfair to the women all around the world, but that happens to be the nature of things.
