
Slandering the Unborn (2018) - cribbles
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/28/opinion/crack-babies-racism.html
======
monochromatic
> The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, Newsweek and others further
> demonized black women “addicts” by wrongly reporting that they were giving
> birth to a generation of neurologically damaged children who were less than
> fully human and who would bankrupt the schools and social service agencies
> once they came of age.

Neurological damage, sure. “Less than fully human” though? I don’t think I
believe it was reported that way.

~~~
mc32
Maybe they are projecting what they now think they really thought?

Unfortunately we’re findung out news organizations yesterday and today are not
about disseminating news but about narrative. This article is meta narrative.

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zozbot123
I don't know about "crack babies" specifically, but FAS is no joke. It's not
exactly unheard of for drugs used in pregnancy to have very severe effects on
the developing baby.

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realnice
Pinned to the front page, while highly political, but why?

~~~
coldtea
Because political is not a taboo?

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cat199
> Legislative intrusion into the womb has a long history in the United States,
> and nowhere is this paternalism more forceful than when illegal drugs are
> part of the equation.

a) legislation on everything has a long history everywhere

b) 'forceful intrusion'. I see what you did there.

c) Paternalism? why does legislation have a gender? if it concerns motherhood,
why is it not then materialism? What are we presupposing by this?

so really, subtext wise, legislating anything to do with pregnancy is
basically rape of women by males, even if it is proposed by females, because
it is 'paternalistic' and 'forcefully intrudes' into the womb.

right. got it.

> By the time the epidemic was over, the view that the fetus was a person with
> rights superseding the mother’s had gained considerable traction in
> practice.

So please, tell me more about this 'novel view' that didn't exist before, and
how it was created directly and specifically as a result of incorrect negative
imagery used in the so-called war on drugs.

Yeah.. no.

Someone is mad that their particular viewpoint w/r/t pregnancy is not as
popular as it once was, and is digging up all the self-referential straw men
needed to define it in order to 'prove' that they are still there.

~~~
deogeo
Regarding c), it's called 'paternalism' because pro-life attitudes, the source
of this legislation, have greater support among men than women:
[http://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-
abortio...](http://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-abortion/)

...whoops, no, sorry, that data shows 36% of women and 37% of men are pro-
life, practically the same.

But maybe we could blame blacks and hispanics? Criminalizing abortion has 35%
support among whites, 38% among blacks, and 44% among hispanics.

~~~
detaro
The definition of "paternalism" does not mention gender (see e.g.
[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/paternalism](https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/paternalism)), so the straw man you built doesn't apply

~~~
deogeo
'Paternalism' is associated with men - it contains the latin word for
'father', and means ".. the manner of a father dealing benevolently and often
intrusively with his children" according to
[https://www.dictionary.com/browse/paternalism](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/paternalism)

And in this article, it was _deliberately_ chosen for its association with men
- it's clearly the wrong word, even without its connotations of gender. Only
laws that are meant to prevent you from harming _yourself_ are paternalistic,
not from harming _others_. E.g. banning high-sugar foods, driving without
seat-belts, etc. You wouldn't call laws against assault, murder, or theft
'paternalistic', would you?

