Serving Pregnant Women Alcohol

Pregnancy is considered one of the protected classes under federal anti-discrimination law, so it makes sense that pregnant women cannot be denied entrance to clubs for that reason. Personally, I think that would be a skeevy thing to do anyway, but clubs discriminate all the time on who they let in, so it wouldn't surprise me to hear about this happening. And I suppose the law also uses this protected class status as the reason for bars being unable to refuse to serve drinks to pregnant women. Pregnancy being a protected class makes sense to me, because I don't think it should be okay for a woman to be fired from a job for becoming pregnant, for example. But with the alcohol serving, I think there could be some gray area here.

As I understand it, it's legal for a bartender to cut someone off for being too intoxicated, and in some states, a bartender or server can be held accountable if he doesn't cut someone off soon enough and they commit a DUI or otherwise drunkenly cause havoc or injury. So there's already some precedent for using your judgment to protect the well being of others whether they want you to or not. I suppose much like a bartender/server may have a scale they use to decide when to cut off a non-pregnant drinker, there may be something that could be used for this instance, too. Doctors vary on how much, if any, alcohol a pregnant woman should drink, with some saying a glass of wine, or a drink or two a week is probably fine, and others saying no alcohol ever. So I think a bartender should probably serve the first drink, and if the customer wants to keep ordering them and the bartender feels like he's causing injury, then maybe he could give a warning about the effects of alcohol on unborn babies before serving the next drink, or let someone else without the same principles serve the drinks. I don't especially like the idea of taking the decision out of the customer's hands; I think people are too quick to refuse to take responsibility for their actions. In a perfect world, someone making the choice to be pregnant should be knowledgeable enough to know whether or not she should be drinking, and should be capable of deciding for herself.

TL;DR: I don't think pregnancy should be used as an excuse to refuse entrance to a bar or club, so I agree with the state laws that make it illegal for bouncers to do this. I think you could use the same processes used to know when to cut off non-pregnant patrons when they're drinking too much as a loophole to limit the alcohol intake from pregnant women in a club/bar/restaurant, but I'd prefer that the drinker had responsibility for their own actions.

 

I don't think it should be considered discriminatory for a bar to post something warning of the effects of alcohol on pregnancy, or for the bartender to say something about it if a pregnant woman orders something.

A Youtube channel I'm subscribed to coincidentally posted a video about this exact topic yesterday, and he drew comparisons to laws banning smoking in public places because of the secondhand smoke affecting other people, among other things. I think he makes some valid points. Here's the video if anyone wants to watch:

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The guy's kind of a crass asshole though, so it might not be everyone's taste.