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Substance Abuse and Parenthood

Biological Mechanisms — Ethical Responsibilties

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Life, Love and Children

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Abstract

Prepregnancy care is the physical and behavioral preparation for childbearing by both parents well before conception. The present and next chapter integrates biological mechanisms initiated by social events, like drug abuse or inappropriate sexual behavior, effectual in the generation of serious congenital abnormalities; such as Down’s syndrome, in the offspring. The importance of increased biological understanding and bioethical awareness in reducing haphazard pregnancies is emphasized — when reproduction is considered a privilege, not a right, the chances of a good outcome is elevated significantly.

My starting point is the intuition that caring is ethically important. Caring expresses ethically significant ways in which we matter to each other, transforming interpersonal relatedness into something beyond ontological necessity or brute survival

Caring: Gender-Sensitive Ethics by Peta Bowden. Routledge, London, UK; 1997; page 1

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

    Irina Pollard PhD (Associate Professor)

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  1. Irina Pollard PhD
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© 2002 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Pollard, I. (2002). Substance Abuse and Parenthood. In: Life, Love and Children. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-0278-4_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-0278-4_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-5000-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4615-0278-4

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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