[Mike E]

Should mothers of drug addicted babies and/or fetal-alcohol syndrome be prosecuted for child abuse?

[Rosemary]

yes it was their choice to abuse their fetus.

[mags2313]

Yes. In our area, women have been charged with this. I definitely agree that they should.

[polarbaby]

yes....I did a research paper on this for biology.Mothers who do drugs and drink knowing that they are pregnant are knowingly doing harm to a child.but because the laws do not consider it a living person in the womb not many AR charged.When i wrote this paper only 1 person in Canada had been charge ,but now the law is changing but many are still using drugs and Algol. Socilal services are steeping in but not enough is being done.

[Zoey]

Yes, if they continue the pregnancy doing those things they should be prosecuted and their children removed. Clearly they don't give a sh** about their child. As far as Im concerned they should be sterilized as well. When it comes to the life of a child you don't get second chances

[hanna h]

No.

Is it messed up and wrong? Sure. But what is prosecuting the mother going to do? It's only going to put more harm to the child. Because the child will go through the child protective service system, in and out of foster homes, etc. Is THAT in the best interest of the child? I don't think so.

It's no different than seeing mothers who have children that they can't financially support but still chose to have children, sometimes over and over, and using welfare to help take care of them. It's no different than mothers who are single and working two jobs, leaving an older child to care for all the other kids. Is this not abuse and neglect as well? Is that in the best interest of the child? To me, that's robbing a child of their childhood by putting them into a position of having to take the responsibilities of an adult caretaker. That should be the job of the ADULT that chose to have the kids in the first place.

And our jails are already overcrowded. How would prosecuting mothers for such a thing help to resolve that?

But prosecuted for abuse? No. Neglect? Maybe. Because in all the examples I listed, the mother was still putting her own selfish desires before thinking of the consequences of how her behavior would affect others that she may be responsible to. Same thing applies to mothers addicted to drugs or alcohol.