I also think there’s a difference between taking precautions not to harm the fetus and obsessing about the effect of every move you make and every bite of food you put in your mouth.

Plus which, you have to consider your health and the fetus’s both, not only the fetus’s. For example, I wouldn’t assume that a pregnant woman who’s had major issues with depression is an awful person if she looks at the risks and discusses it with her doctor and decides that staying on her SSRI is a better choice than going off it to decrease the risk of birth defects.

As if a woman for whom certain products, pharmaceuticals, foods, and lifestyles might make a positive difference does not get to enjoy that positive difference if it would effect her ability to be a brood mare.

I figure, if you voluntarily choose to bring a fetus to term, then you are creating a human being. It’s not okay to do bodily harm to anyone – how is it okay to do it to your own children? If you’re not willing to accept the responsibility to treat your own children like human beings, then you ought to avoid becoming pregnant, or have an abortion if you do.

Moreover, I’d say parents have a responsibility to try to be good parents. That should not be in question. I’m on board with questioning whether any particular thing should be seen as a mark of good parenting or not (for instance setting a bedtime for your kid), and I definitely think it’s wrong that the majority of the child-rearing-related pressure falls on mothers instead of fathers. I also don’t think parents should feel obligated to give up their entire lives for their kids.

But saying or implying that a woman who voluntarily becomes pregnant and wants to bring the fetus to term doesn’t have a responsibility to not harm the fetus is like saying an elected politician shouldn’t be accountable to their constituents because OH NOES it might be unpleasant and voters might have opinions about the way they do their job!

Interestingly, I had a more negative reaction to this spread than I normally do to the portrayals of awful fathering in those shows, probably because there is a double standard in this society regarding parenting and I’ve absorbed it. When fathers mistreat their children, it’s funny. It’s clearly just a joke. The children aren’t real. But when mothers mistreat their children, it seems ugly and wrong.

Now, you can certainly argue that it’s wrong to normalize mistreatment of children. You can say this isn’t something we should be poking fun at. Just check your biases and try not to apply the double standard.