Posted on 03/20/2008 1:15:04 PM PDT by SmithL
Give birth, get a parking pass?
California lawmakers are considering granting special parking privileges to women in the final three months of pregnancy and the first two months after birth.
The legislation would apply to more than a half-million women who give birth every year in California.
Assemblyman Chuck DeVore's bill would qualify pregnant women for "temporarily disabled" parking placards from the Department of Motor Vehicles.
"Let's be reasonable here: There are challenges, physical challenges, that arise as a natural part of life," DeVore said of pregnancy.
The Irvine Republican said it makes little sense to force a pregnant woman who has trouble getting out of her car, and might have a toddler in tow, to park in the outer reaches of a parking lot.
"It certainly makes you realize that for that very short period of time in their pregnancy, they are certainly by any practical definition (impaired)," he said.
DeVore is wading into a thicket abandoned four years ago by a colleague, then-Assemblyman Tony Strickland, R-Thousand Oaks, who proposed similar legislation, then shelved it amid a hail of controversy.
Opponents of the new proposal, Assembly Bill 1940, say pregnant women should be exercising as much as possible and that the legislation could reduce parking for motorists with more serious disabilities.
"We really want pregnant women to be active, to be moving, to be walking," said Shannon Smith-Crowley of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' California chapter, which opposes AB 1940.
A woman with complications from pregnancy that severely impair walking, or cause other serious health problems, can qualify for a temporary parking placard under existing law, she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Hey! I’m all for it. If the baby was conceived in a parked car, give the mother a free pass.
“Assemblyman Chuck DeVore’s bill would qualify pregnant women for “temporarily disabled” parking placards from the Department of Motor Vehicles.”
O good God Chuck, have you nothing better to do.
DO NOT get me started on this. My supermarket USED TO have a space for “adult with child”....front row, prime parking space, we all ignored the sign and parked there. What about “little old man with cane” special parking,,,”little old lady” special parking,,,,I’m sooooooooooo sick of this nonsense............
Grateful for being healthy and able-bodied... I get kind of fed up with the many, usually empty, parking places marked for the handicapped, senior citizens, mothers with small children, now this. Seems like it would be easier to rope off a section in the back of the lot and label it as being for “everyone who does not need special treatment”. No offense intended to anyone with elderly or disabled issues.
Go a better idea. How about trashing all those handicap parking places? Everyone will get to park closer, and people just might have to recognize others, and actually offer a parking place closer to someone who is disabled.
The government never presents answers, only more problems.
A lifetime pass if the car was moving.
So what happens when you go to Planned Parenthood to get an abortion? Is it free on the way in, but costs money on the way out?
A few friends of mine and I always did that as well.
9th Circus would rule this a discriminatory law since gays and lesbians wouldn’t ever get the parking spaces.
Us, too. I am so with you on this. My wife used to say "oh, look.... people with stubbed toe parking"
Still makes me laugh.
But I thought the reason we were forced to employ pregnant women was that pregnancy was NOT a disability! Oh, and then we were forced to pay them “as any other disability” because it IS a disability! But wait, there’s more!
Sorry, girls. Being smart enough to figure out how tab A fits in slot B does not make you worthy of special parking. Get out and walk like the rest of us. Its good for you.
yup.. Im with you.. this idea is plain stupid.
So, you have a complex where companies have deep layoffs, and the practically all of the remaining employees have to continue to park in the boonies of the near empty parking lot.
“How about trashing all those handicap parking places?”
You remind me of a news story from not that long ago where the city of San Francisco was experiencing a significant drop in parking meter revenue. When they dug into the issue they found out that the city had given more special parking rights to people than the city had parking meters. Whoops!
“The government never presents answers, only more problems.”
You got that right!
Great! Now illegal aliens are going to get all the best parking spaces.
There's someone in california who doesn't see pregnant women as filthy breeders to sneer at and make angry comments over?
Maybe the state isn't a total loss after all.
“Hey, wait a minute, you’ve been parking here for 10 months. You’re not pregnant, you’re FAT!”
Do anchor baby moms get twice as many months?
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