Will Smoking Be Banned For Pregnant Women?

If you're pregnant and you smoke, a Hot Springs legislator wants you to stop. In fact, Representative Bob Mathis wants his colleagues to study whether it should be against the law for you to smoke. During this spring's special session, Mathis led the charge to ban smoking in cars with children. He told lawmakers on Saturday that children born to smokers face the risk of long-term health problems and questioned whether it was "constitutional" for a mother to smoke while pregnant. Mathis urged lawmakers to study the issue before the Legislature goes into session in January. A former smoker, Mathis is term-limited from returning to the Legislature. Kevin Dedner, Arkansas government relations director for the American Cancer Society, says his organization prefers to fight smoking in public areas. Dedner says he hasn't heard of a similar proposal anywhere else in the country.