Taxpayer pays women to quit smoking

I have just done an interview for BBC Radio Sheffield in response to THIS story about pregnant women in South Yorkshire being paid to stop smoking.

Personally I think it's a complete waste of public money. Why should the taxpayer fund this scheme? And what about the very many pregnant women who quit smoking without being bribed to do so? Don't they deserve a bob or two? (Call it an allowance. MPs do.)

As I have said before, I think women should err on the side of caution when it comes to smoking during pregnancy, but let's not exaggerate the scale of the problem. To hear the "evidence" it's a wonder that any child whose mother smokes during pregnancy survives infancy, let alone childhood.

The emphasis, for now, is on caring for mother and child. This is the nanny state at its most benevolent, happy to use public money for the "greater good". (On Radio Sheffield the woman responsible for the scheme justified the cost by comparing it to "the cost of caring for ill babies for the rest of their lives". I reminded her that children born in the Fifties, when 40 per cent of women smoked, are now living longer and healthier lives than ever before. She airily dismissed this point, arguing that people didn't know about the risks in those days.)

It won't be long before the bully state muscles in. Pregnant women caught smoking will be routinely vilified, accused of child abuse or, worse, arrested and charged with a criminal offence. We can't let that happen.

Update on Friday, May 22, 2009 by Simon Clark

I forgot to mention it but there was an outrageous article by Anne Diamond in the Daily Mirror last week. The opening line says it all: "Smoking around your kids is tantamount to child abuse". You can read it HERE.