This was an old case, from the ACLU's files, where a mother got arrested for drinking while pregnant.
http://archive.aclu.org/news/w081596c.html
Quote:
CHESTERFIELD, NH -- The arrest of a pregnant New Hampshire woman for endangering the life of her fetus with alcohol has outraged American Civil Liberties Union officials, and others who contend police misinterpreted the law and overstepped their bounds, the Boston Globe reports.
The unusual charge occurred Friday in Chesterfield, N.H., after police were called to the San 'N Sno Motel to break up a disturbance involving a man and a woman.
Rosemarie Tourigny was arrested on a charge of endangering the welfare of a child after a blood test showed her alcohol level was 0.21 percent, more than twice the legal limit for New Hampshire drivers, according to police reports.
The arrest is the first of its kind in New Hampshire. In Massachusetts, charges in two similar 1989 cases were dropped, as they have been in most similar cases against pregnant women nationwide, Sarah Wunsch, an attorney with the Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, told the Globe.
Tourigny, 31, said what she does with her body is her business -- not the government's.
``This is my body. If I choose to abort, if I choose to do anything to my body, it's my body,'' said Tourigny, who is 12 weeks pregnant and has been living with her boyfriend since May.
But police Sgt. Lester Fairbanks disagreed, saying he arrested Tourigny to protect her fetus. "She can pickle herself all she wants, but that child doesn't have the opportunity to decide whether it's going to be retarded or not,'' he said. "Somebody has to have responsibility for her unborn child.''
Representatives of the New Hampshire ACLU said Wednesday that Tourigny and Tourigny alone should bear that responsibility.
Claire Ebel, executive director of the organization, called the arrest "an abuse of power.'' She also said the state statute under which Tourigny was charged was never meant to include the unborn.
"That statute does not apply, and was never intended to apply, to pregnant women,'' Ebel told the Globe. "We confer personhood at live birth, and most jurisdictions in the United States do likewise.''
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From the ACLU files, makes for an interesting debate... When you know a real life example, it's appalling.
If it's a miscarriage she's shooting for, which, depending on how far along she is in her pregnancy, could be a lot tougher on her body and her future conception ability, than an abortion would be. There are probably better ways to try and miscarry than to drink it to death, I've seen babies born with fetal alchohol syndrome and it is the saddest thing I've ever seen.