Letters to the Editor
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Er, "compensate her" ? Really?
"Maybe the woman could be compensated for her time and the use of her womb".
That remark is absolutely stunning.
I'm sure he meant well, but that statement reveals an incredible ignorance of what actually happens during and after pregnancy & childbirth. Unfortunately, I'm sure that many men have the same deplorable lack of information on the subject.(not all, just many)
He makes it sound like the woman is just sitting around, uninvolved physically, emotionally and mentally, with some 'goings on' in a remote, magical 'body closet' that has nothing to do with her.
There IS NO FAIR COMPENSATION for pregnancy and childbirth, and the associated risks and problems. How do you 'compensate' the woman if she develops diabetes from the pregnancy? If she dies? If she develops a bad back and hemorrhoids and has to live with them for the next 50 or 60 years? If it's a really difficult delivery that renders her unable to have any more children? How do you compensate for the fact that the baby can leech needed nutrients from her very bones and makes the woman's health secondary, even dangerously secondary, to it's own needs?
Are you going to cover every possible risk throughout her lifetime that the pregnancy and delivery could cause? I hate to say it, but some men have no clue what they are talking about in this matter - and the idea that anyone can think that a pregnancy and childbirth can be reduced to 'time and womb use' is both astounding, and depressing.
Sex ed should include not just sex, but a full explanation of what happens during pregnancy, and how it affects/can affect the female. (and male) Maybe then the level of ignorance, which has a real bearing on these kinds of procreative decisions, will change.