Alcohol and Family Health

This poster demonstrates the various methods The American Issue used to influence its audience. It creates fear by implying that drinking alcohol during pregnancy negatively impacts a child's development and physical health. The experiment referenced in the poster used pregnant dogs to illustrate the potential consequences of alcohol during pregnancy. The dogs that were given alcohol had fewer surviving, and more disabled offspring compared to those that were not given any alcohol.

However, there are significant issues with this approach. First, humans are not dogs, and their responses to alcohol would be different. Additionally, the poster does not provide sufficient evidence to support its claims. Key details, such as the number of dogs involved, their breeds, and the exact amount of alcohol administered are missing, making it hard to assess the validity of the experiment. From this we can see that The American Issue would misconstrue their results to make them seem like even more damning evidence to be used against drinking.

Although the poster does not explicitly state it, a eugenicist influence can be inferred. By contrasting the well-born, healthy puppies (those not exposed to alcohol) with the disabled ones (resulting from alcohol consumption), the poster subtly aligns with eugenicist ideologies. While not as overt as other prohibitionist media, the implication still remains that temperance was not solely promoted for family values but also appealed to those who supported the eugenics movement. This suggests that prohibitionist rhetoric may have overlapped with efforts to advocate for "better breeding" and discourage behaviors perceived as detrimental to the population's genetic quality. This is also seen in how it was a fairly popular idea that alcoholism was passed down by family, and that that gene had to be stopped and removed from being passed down.