If you've been to the LCBO lately, then you may have seen this poster urging pregnant women not to drink lest they harm their baby. Sounds reasonable enough, right? Yet the campaign with FASworld Canada that ran from Aug. 25 to Sept. 12 to raise awareness of the risks of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder rubbed at least one customer the wrong way.
Laura Jamer described the Liquor Control Board of Ontario's "Love your body, love your baby. Don’t drink while pregnant” poster as “offensive and wrong on so many levels,” and filed an official complaint to LCBO.
“I thought the message behind it was very condescending and that it implied if you have a glass of wine, it meant you didn’t love your body, and it meant you didn’t love your baby, which is really what I take issue with,” said Jamer, a mom of two, who cited research about the safety of moderate drinking during pregnancy that claimed drinking two units a week may cause "fewer behavioural problems and higher reading skills" in boys. Sounds dubious.
However, Jamer feels that the LCBO's wording fosters mom guilt. “Not only that, it encourages the general public to shame and judge mothers who are having a glass of wine …"
Jamer wants to see the current ads altered in line with a previous campaign which read, "Drinking while pregnant ‘may’ harm your baby." The 'may' being the all-important operative word.
Clearly the posters are intended to caution expecting moms against excessive drinking (excessive in this case being fairly light drinking). So I don't really have a problem with the educational campaign. I think the LCBO's heart is in the right place, and I'm not going to get hung up about semantics.
I fail to see any inherent judgment or guilt in the poster other than that which people assign to it. Then again, I'm not pregnant right now, so maybe I'm less sensitive about such matters.
(Saying that, I think people will always gawk at the sight of a pregnant woman wandering the aisles of LCBO—regardless of what a poster says—because people are notorious for ogling pregnant women as though they are somehow public property.)
It's like the warning labels on cigarettes that exist to remind the public about the side effects of smoking. Women are big girls who can make up their own minds about whether to choose to heed or ignore the warnings.
You tell me: Is the LCBO poster offensive or not?
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