According to a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) spokesperson, its recent infographic advising women on how to avoid Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorders (FASD) was intended to empower women to make the best choices for themselves and their children, in consultation with a doctor, “because every woman wants a healthy baby.”

Instead, the spokesperson told The Stream, it has led to condemnation across social media and elsewhere. Liberal commentators have hammered the recommendations for victim-blaming and putting pressure on women, while one site said the recommendations were “transphobic”.

On the other side of the cultural divide, Catholic writer Simcha Fisher criticized the recommendations for promoting contraceptives and telling “society that pregnancy is a horrible, scary, emergency situation that can descend on you at any time without warning for no reason.”

The CDC Recommends

So what did the CDC actually recommend last week?

“Alcohol use during pregnancy can cause fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs), which are physical, behavioral, and intellectual disabilities that last a lifetime,” says a release attached to the infographic.

More than 3 million U.S. women are at risk of exposing their developing baby to alcohol because they are drinking, having sex, and not using birth control to prevent pregnancy. About half of all U.S. pregnancies are unplanned and, even if planned, most women do not know they are pregnant until they are 4-6 weeks into the pregnancy. This means a woman might be drinking and exposing her developing baby to alcohol without knowing it.

According to the CDC, 5 percent of American school children may have a FASD. Effects include low birth rate, organ problems, and brain damage — while alcohol generally can cause miscarriages, premature birth, and other ills.

The infographic also describes the risks of drinking for women, whether pregnant or not. Three of the six risks listed are sexually transmitted diseases, injuries/violence, and unintended pregnancy — none of which are harms from alcohol itself, but rather that can result from drinking too much alcohol.

The CDC recommends women who are attempting to become pregnant stop drinking entirely and women who don’t intend to become pregnant and want to drink to use contraceptives. Nowhere in the infographic is sexual abstinence recommended as an option.

“The CDC’s overreaching recommendation is just another poor excuse meant to make healthy women sterile and further expand the nanny state,” Family Research Council Director of the Center for Human Dignity Arina Grossu told The Stream. “It recommends that women’s fertility be medicated by birth control to avoid pregnancy. Fertility is not a disease. The CDC largely overlooks the very obvious and healthiest solution to avoiding pregnancy: abstinence.”

While the infographic was targeted to all women of child-bearing age, Valerie Huber told The Stream the CDC’s “message for teens should be one that discourages all negative risk behaviors.”

“Let’s face it,” said Huber, President and CEO of the teen-focused Ascend, “alcohol plus sex plus contraception does not equal safe. Overwhelming research shows that youth are more likely to thrive into a healthy adulthood when they wait for sex. That should be the unambiguous message for youth.”

The CDC’s Reasons

The Stream asked a CDC spokesperson why the infographic did not recommend abstinence and why it pushed the same contraceptives that can harm women and cause abortions. “Abstinence is also an option to be considered,” the spokesperson said. The CDC, she said,

encourages women to talk with their healthcare provider about their plans for pregnancy, their alcohol use, and ways to prevent pregnancy if they are not planning to get pregnant in the near future. This enables the woman and her partner to make the best decisions for themselves, learn about their options and making decisions that support their values and health goals.

Asked why when the CDC noted the risks of drinking while pregnant, it didn’t include the risks of contraceptives included in the infographic, the spokesperson said that wasn’t the goal of the infographic. “This Vital Signs [infographic] was aimed to raise awareness about alcohol use and pregnancy. We encourage women to talk with their healthcare provider about the best options for them. That includes discussing any concerns about risks associated with any specific course of action.”

And on the abortifacient potential of many contraceptive drugs and devices, which weren’t highlighted in the infographic? “The Vital Signs was not designed to provide detail about certain types of contraception. Rather, it was specifically about alcohol use during pregnancy and the effects that can occur, namely fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. It stresses the importance of alcohol screening for all adults and the use of counseling to help people who are drinking too much. This includes any amount of alcohol use for a woman who is pregnant or might be pregnant.”

The recommendations came days before the CDC recommended that men who are at risk for the Zika Virus, a mosquito-transmitted disease that could affect millions by year’s end, either use condoms when engaging in sexual intercourse  or abstain from sex entirely.