Stopping Fetal Alcohol Syndrom Current Event

Stopping Fetal Alcohol Syndrome: Women who drink need treatment

By Janet Golden, Special to the Post-Intelligencer

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Sunday, March 20, 2005

The severity of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, also known as FAS is relatively common in many births today. However, recently there have been many warnings just about everywhere alcohol is sold. In restaurants there is a common sticker on bathroom mirror stating that "according to the surgeon general, women who are pregnant, or may become so should abstain for consumption of alcoholic beverages. These precautions have come relatively recently, but why? After all, alcohol has been around for a long time, why hasn't anyone discovered the effects before? Well, the effects have been discovered before but nobody paid attention to them. But the hype now may eventually lend a hand in decreasing the births of these humans who often have problems with learning, memory, attention span, communication, vision, and hearing.

This topic is very important especially to those who are, or intend to become, pregnant. Though there are a lot of warnings on liquor bottles, and (by law) in all establishments that sell liquor, there are still many instances of this happening. Articles like these hopefully will assist in decreasing the number of instances of this happening, and in doing so, create a world less people have learning disabilities that inhibit them from doing the things that they want to. This topic also may help people understand the moral, ethical, or physical consequences of a mother pregnant with a child who is bound to (by no fault of its own) have FAS.

This article is relatively credible because it did come from a big-city newspaper--the Seattle Post-Intelligencer--which generally do not have inaccuracies. It also lists some experts such as the author Michael Dorris, a well-known legal case of Thorp v. Jim Beam, and many decrees such as those by the Surgeon General, as well as studies by organizations such as National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. The only thing that makes me think this article is not as credible as it might be, is the opinion in the last paragraph that reads, "It is time to develop a new social definition..." While I may agree with this, some may not, and therefore the article