A generation has passed since a physician first noticed that women
who drank heavily while pregnant gave birth to underweight infants
with disturbing tell-tale characteristics. Women whose own mothers
enjoyed martinis while pregnant now lost sleep over a bowl of rum
raisin ice cream. In "Message in a Bottle," Janet Golden charts the
course of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) through the courts, media,
medical establishment, and public imagination.
Long considered harmless during pregnancy (doctors even
administered it intravenously during labor), alcohol, when consumed
by pregnant women, increasingly appeared to be a potent teratogen
and a pressing public health concern. Some clinicians recommended
that women simply moderate alcohol consumption; others, however,
claimed that there was no demonstrably safe level for a developing
fetus, and called for complete abstinence. Even as the diagnosis
gained acceptance and labels appeared on alcoholic beverages
warning pregnant women of the danger, FAS began to be
de-medicalized in some settings. More and more, FAS emerged in
court cases as a viable defense for people charged with serious,
even capital, crimes and their claims were rejected.
Golden argues that the reaction to FAS was shaped by the
struggle over women's relatively new abortion rights and the
escalating media frenzy over "crack" babies. It was increasingly
used as evidence of the moral decay found within marginalized
communities--from inner-city neighborhoods to Indian reservations.
With each reframing, FAS became a currency traded by politicians
and political commentators, lawyers, public health professionals,
and advocates for underrepresented minorities, each
pursuingseparate aims.
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