Should pregnant women get special parking privileges?
Women experiencing difficult pregnancies may soon be entitled to free parking anywhere in New York City, if a new bill passes. Pregnant women with mobility challenges could slide right into No Parking zones. What do you think? Should San Francisco consider a similar law for women with swollen feet and aching backs?
New York City councilman David Greenfield (Democrat, Brooklyn) has proposed legislation that allows pregnant women to request a note from their doctor entitling them to a special parking placard.
"The women could then park for free in no-parking or no-standing zones until 30 days after their expected due dates -- a cushion of time for those whose deliveries come later than expected -- or who need to recover from childbirth complications," according to the New York Daily News.
Under the new law, disabled drivers would still have superior benefits. Pregnant women wouldn't be able to park in handicapped spaces in parking lots nor would they be able to park all day without feeding the meter.
Some states have similar laws. For example, in Oklahoma pregnant women can request a handicap placard. Yet in Oklahoma parking spaces are more readily available than in New York.
Greenfield decided to introduce the legislation after his wife struggled with two complicated pregnancies. "If I'm on a train and a pregnant woman walks in, I stand up and offer her my seat," Greenfield told the Daily News. "I consider this legislation to be the same thing -- standing up on the City Council for women who have difficult pregnancies."
As you'd expect, the proposed legislation is being met with varied response.
"Being eight or nine months pregnant is hard anyway, so this is a good benefit," 29-year-old expectant mom Asma Lat told the Daily News.
"This would create another group entitled to park on curbs where there is no room already," Paul Steely White of the transit advocacy group Transportation Alternatives, told the Daily News. "The city already has too many special parking permits -- and too many people abusing the system with fake placards and scams."
Can you imagine if a similar law were proposed in San Francisco? You'd definitely hear from some loud-mouthed opponents. The anti-population growth activists would say that anyone contributing to our world's overpopulation problem should be penalized, not rewarded. Those living with cars yet without parking spaces in Russian Hill would throw serious temper-tantrums and scream "No fair!" Men would say that they deserve the same right. Some would vehemently object because something like 50,000 people in this city already have handicap placards and the last thing we need is even more people with parking privileges who need to be monitored because sometimes in these situations people use and abuse the system. And the list goes on...
Granting parking privileges to a woman who is eight months pregnant and barely able to walk seems like a nice thing to do. My fear is that something like this fuels the 1950s idea that pregnant women are incapable and disabled. There's already so much discrimination against pregnant women--especially in the workplace--and if anything pregnant women need to let the world know that we're fully capable.
"A lot of bosses just don't think you'll be as dedicated, that you're as nimble or fast, mentally or physically," Sonia Ossorio of the National Organization for Women in New York City told the Daily News. "You see women's career paths completely take a wrong turn as a result of getting pregnant and becoming mothers."
