Response to smoking

In correlation to the factors and effects of smoking, a topic for debate is mothers who choose to smoke whilst being pregnant. Via the link http://voice-in-order.blogspot.com/ I read a fellow blogger, Herj Kaurs view upon this issue. Kaur proposes that the Government should introduce a law by which pregnant women are registered and tested for nicotine, with the consequences of being fined if the substance is found in their bloodstream.

Personally I do not believe this scheme would work. Factors affecting its success include, thousands of babies being born every day, meaning thousands of people getting pregnant every day. When taking this into consideration it would mean the time and cost of the scheme would be extremely high and a lot of controversy from this would arise. Also, it is a well known fact that nicotine is extremely addictive, therefore for someone who has smoked from many years to be told they have to stop could be extremely stressful, in turn having similar harmful side effects upon the unborn anyway.

Generally many people uphold the view that a person should have the freedom whether to smoke or not as it is their body. However, I agree with Kaur as when an unborn child is in a mother's womb they are not given that choice whether they wish to inhale those toxic substances. Therefore even though the proposed scheme may have too many costs I believe something should be put into place to protect the unborn.

If the Government were however to inflict a scheme such as the proposed it could be found somewhat useful in places of high birth rates, as due to for example addiction a person may choose to not get pregnant rather than to stop smoking.

I personally believe a pregnant women smoking is horrific, it is a prime example of bad behaviour that should be changed.