For your consideration:

Pregnant women are demonized when they do anything that might compromise the health of the fetus they are carrying, from simple things like scooping cat litter and eating sushi to more obvious things like having a beer or smoking a cigarette.

Many people on BOTH sides feel that it is their right and privilege to not only criticize pregnant women for doing the same things everyone else is legally allowed to indulge in, but outright DISCRIMINATE against them. Yes, I said DISCRIMINATE. A waiter/waitress can refuse to serve a pregnant woman a glass of wine or a beer with her meal and because society is so insane now about every teensy thing a pregnant woman puts in her body, more often than not the person in question can get away with this sexism. Yes, I said sexism, because that is what it is. A man expecting offspring will never be refused service based on his reproductive status. His body will never be used by anyone other than himself. All he has to do to beget offspring is grunt and enjoy himself.

Never mind that the same things people come down so hard on pregnant women for can equally affect the sperm. Never mind that even if a woman never touches alcohol or cigarettes in her life, her partner could cause birth defects by smoking, drinking or exposing himself to chemicals before he even gets her pregnant. Nobody CARES about the damage men do to their potential offspring...only about what the women do when they're enslaved...er...knocked up.

I have seen more than my share of so-called "prochoicers" labeling women who smoke while pregnant with some pretty vile names and some of them even advocate special laws to restrict only pregnant women from the same chemicals that everyone else is free to indulge in.

This is not a question of whether it's good or bad, right or wrong to smoke, drink, skydive, go horseback riding, scoop litter, eat fish, watch TV or whatever the hell else they can come up with that could cause potential two-headed babies. This is about how women are treated when pregnant and what is going to happen to females EVERYWHERE of breeding age if prolifers get their way.

Imagine having your rights completely removed from you the moment you hit puberty and never having the same freedom as your male counterparts again until you've reached the age where menopause chews you up and spits you out. Who would want to live that way?

This is what would happen if women are forced to breed against their will. People discriminate against pregnant women and if all pregnancies are compelled by law to gestate to full term, then women might as well be chained inside a box and made to birth and nurse until they're too old to do it anymore. You don't have a choice in carrying and you no longer have the same rights as everyone else because you're pregnant. Men of course would be blessedly free of these chains, as they've always been.

I want people to take a good, hard look at the way society treats pregnant women and ask themselves if they would really stand for being treated as a farm animal or a child. Would men allow strange people to touch their stomachs for "luck"? Give me a break. People treat pregnant women as barely human. Even prochoicers generally don't want pregnant women to have the same rights as others.

Don't advocate slavery. Support choice. If it's worth the patronizing treatment from others to a woman, she really wants a child. If not, then she doesn't and forcing her to endure being treated as a second-class citizen along with the rigors of gestation and birth would be slavery, simple and true.

*Edit: Okay, WHY is it putting two commas in the bloody heading? I typed it as "Let's talk about slippery slopes" but it continues to show up as "Let''s" and if I edit the comma out of it, it doesn't show up at all. I'm very unhappy with the way this board is going lately.