Everyday there are pregnant mothers who abuse drugs and alcohol totally ignoring the living, growing person inside them. Then, when these children are born, they are usually born with a drug addiction or birth defects which sometimes leads to death. One thing's for sure, these children's lives are greatly complexed before they even reach the light of day. Which leads to my position that the rights of the child should be extended to the unborn. A mother should not have the right to use drugs or drink alcohol while she is pregnant, it is unfair for the child not to even have a chance for a normal life.
If a mother beat her baby and was reported to the child welfare board they would be thrown in jail without a second thought, but just because a child is not yet born doesn't that mean that a mother can do anything she wants to it.
Unborn Child
fetus development - 23 weeks
Young Woman Mother with Daughter GirlTake a child who has been born, then goes through the pain of having an abusive parent. If the parents are exposed to the authorities they will go to jail and lose the rights to the child, and with proper counseling and therapy the child will live a normal life. Yet, if the child is unborn, the mother can do whatever she would like, even if it means harming the baby and the authorities can do nothing. When the baby is born, the child might have irreparable brain damage or some physical defect and would not be able to live a normal life, for the rest of it's life. The abuse that the unborn child goes through is the same as if it was born but the severity is much greater, and nothing can be done. To me, this is child abuse of the worst kind.