To the editor:
I am the adoptive mother of a boy who will live his life permanently braindamaged by in-utero alcohol exposure due to the addiction of his birth mother.
I'd like to say that no human should be robbed of their life's potential for normal success before they're even born. This has nothing to do with women's rights, or men's rights for that matter. This is really about the ethics of being human and the biology of being a human female on this planet.
This has nothing to do with "non-cognitive lumps in the uterus". This has to do with the reality that that "non-cognitive lump" will be expelled in nine months into a world that will expect and demand that it have normal brain function.
A "non-cognitive lump" subjected to alcohol in- utero will spend its life being punished by the world for not being normal. I marched for women's rights, including the right to safe abortion before most of you were born.
This is about the ethical challenge of being an adult human being. Women give birth, men don't, it's that complicated, or that simple. Step up you young women and fully grow a uterus. If you want to drink alcohol, use birth control. If you want to make a baby, plan it.
No more drinking is the first step to pregnancy and producing a baby with an undamaged normal brain. Don't imagine that this issue is about equal drinking rights with men. As Marilyn Monroe said, " Any woman who wants to be equal with a man is setting her sights too low."
Shirley Hill,
Surrey, B.C.
