Joan Ball is a business professor at St. John’s University in New York and the author of Flirting with Faith: My Spiritual Journey from Atheism to a Faith-Filled Life.
As a single girl, I must admit breastfeeding stories don’t often catch my eye. So, please forgive me for being a little late on the “let’s lynch the drunken breastfeeding mother” bandwagon.
Honestly, I’m reluctant to lynch the guilty mother, Stacey Anvarinia, at all. After reading this Boston Globe article, I found several pieces of information to be disturbing. To summarize the situation…after responding to a domestic disturbance call made by Anvarinia, officers found her intoxicated. When she started breastfeeding in front of them, they considered this child endangerment and arrested her.
Now, the bits of the story that bother me:
1) Apparently, the arresting officers never conducted a blood-alcohol test.
2) Drinking while breastfeeding is a controversial subject; there’s no definitive medical standard for how much is too much. With a standard that unclear and no blood-alcohol test, what is the exact crime?
3) One of the officers is quotes as saying, “This case is more than just the breast-feeding. It was the totality of the circumstances,” said Grand Forks Police Lt. Rahn Farder. “It is quite unusual for a mother to be breast-feeding her child as we are conducting an investigation, whether she was intoxicated or not.” (I may be single and a long way from motherhood, but that statement just plain raises my hackles).
Well, those are all questions regarding legalities; for the purposes of this blog, I have questions regarding the ethics of her punishment. Anvarinia faces up to 5 years in prison for child neglect.
What is an ethical resolution to this type of situation? Given the unclear standard of harm to the baby, is it better to leave the child in its mother’s care but under probation and with supervision? Or separate mother and child completely by sending the mother away for years?
I fall on the side of keeping mother with child, under probation. If we are to judge her on this act alone, then give her a chance at redemption. I’m judging ethics in this case on the standard of harm; the weight of the crime versus the weight of separating mother and infant seems disproportionate to me.
What do you think?
posted July 20, 2009 at 4:26 pm
I would agree with you Padmini for the most part. Here are few thoughts and questions that popped into my head as I was reading what you wrote: 1. Just like any human being, this mother is susceptible to error and fallibility. 2. What parent has not made a mistake with either their children, or around their children and just did not get caught? 3. What if there was no formula in the home, the child is only able to drink the breast milk, and was hungry? Would abstaining from feeding the baby be considered negligent as well? 4. How can the officers make such a judgment call based on the quotes they provided and on the small amount of factual evidence? Will there be any repercussions for the officer for separating a child from the mother if she is exonerated?
posted July 20, 2009 at 7:11 pm
If she was drunk and taking care of an infant, that is child endangerment to me, the cops did the right thing. To further compound the situation, she was also breastfeeding the child as well. Either way “drunk mommy” and “baby” do not go well together.
posted July 21, 2009 at 12:41 pm
I agree that if she was too drunk to take care of the child, it is child endangerment. But I don’t understand why breastfeeding is being made out to be the issue. She’s a lot more likely to harm her child by falling, dropping the baby, falling asleep on the baby or something else than she is to harm it with alcohol in the breastmilk.
I wrote about that here: http://www.phdinparenting.com/2009/07/08/you-should-not-be-drunk-while-caring-for-your-baby/
In this case in particular, I do think the officers were out of line. They were reacting to the breastfeeding and being uncomfortable with that or reacting to some other sort of prejudice they had. If they were doing their jobs properly, they would have done the blood alcohol test (among other things they should have done).