Ideas@TheCentre
Welfare of unborn children versus women’s right to drink
The struggle for liberals is to strike the right balance between individual liberty and protecting the rights of others. This is easier to do where the rule of law is concerned. If a person breaks the law and is found guilty they can expect to have their liberty curtailed.
The much harder case is behaviour that doesn’t break the law but is socially reprehensible, morally wrong, and which harms others – as in the case of the pregnant woman from Halls Creek who, despite being in labour, refused to go to hospital to give birth because she was busy drinking.
In Western Australia, the tragic legacy of foetal alcohol syndrome is being passed on to a second generation. Young woman suffering from the effects of alcohol abuse by their own mothers are having children with irreversible brain damage and facial abnormalities because they do not stop drinking while pregnant.
It is not illegal for a pregnant woman to drink. In fact, it is illegal for pubs and bottle stores to refuse to serve them, and understandably so. Who is to say the pregnant woman is not buying the drink for her husband or friend, or drinking responsibly and only having a light beer or spritzer?
However, the problem with expecting people to behave responsibly is that this only works for people who are responsible, rational, and able to make informed decisions.
Last weekend, the Australian Hotels Association launched a program in Halls Creek where pregnant women can opt to be refused service during their pregnancies. Those most in need are highly unlikely to take up this initiative because it’s asking irresponsible people to act responsibly.
Pubs are able refuse to serve patrons deemed to be ‘too intoxicated’, a very subjective judgment, and open to abuse. The underlying principle is that licensees have a public duty to serve alcohol responsibly. So should pubs also refuse to serve alcohol to drunk pregnant women when it is clear they are buying the drinks for themselves?
Is this an unwarranted infringement on individual liberty? Or is this legitimate based on the principle (per Mill) that liberty should be restrained when a person’s behaviour harms others? How else are we to protect unborn children whose lives would be damaged by their mother’s alcohol abuse?
Sara Hudson is a policy analyst at the CIS.
