Free Parking is For Monopoly Boards, Not Pregnant Women

May 5, 2004

Fearing that the state of California isn’t dishing out enough special perks at Wal Mart for those who forget to use condoms, one state assemblyman is proposing a bill that would allow pregnant women to park in spots designated for those with physical handicaps.  Pregnant women across America are hailing the event as the biggest win for expecting mothers since NBA superstar and seven-time illegitimate father Shawn Kemp agreed to pay child support.

Republican Assemblyman Tony Strickland said he was sparked to introduce the legislation after hearing complaints from angry constituents who – gasp – couldn’t find parking next to the front door at Macy’s.  He tells the L.A. Daily News, “a lot of them [pregnant women] gave me stories about how they didn’t go to the mall or supermarket because they couldn’t walk all the way from a normal parking spot.”

While it’s understandable that nine months of pregnancy would teach some women the virtues of keeping their legs together – walking an extra four spaces in the parking lot isn’t exactly the ‘trail of tears.’  Even for pregnant women.

Handicapped spaces aren’t meant to be some sort of ‘employee of the month’ perk for whatever group whines the loudest in Sacramento.  If so, the prison guards’ union would have had it in their contract long ago.  These spaces are meant for people with serious physical disabilities.  Pregnant women are literally demanding that triple amputees and paraplegics stop being so damn greedy!

Without getting too biological, these are apples and oranges.  You choose to get pregnant.  You don’t choose to have cancer.  With the possible exception of Ethel Kennedy – no woman has ever been born pregnant.

In addition, it is highly possible for those with physical handicaps to be single and childless.  Paranoid Vietnam vets with missing limbs who sport pirate eye-patches and suffer from dementia aren’t exactly known for cleaning up in the singles bars. 

Since asexual reproduction is still just an apple in Murphy Brown’s eye, pregnant women incapable of walking long distances should expect their ‘baby daddy’ to do the shopping.  These men should just think of it as their second official automobile related contribution to the pregnancy – just the first one occurring from the front seat.

However, I don’t expect the ‘married with children’ types to back down from this absurd request.  They are emboldened by the fact that they always get what they want and have no problem asking the general public to do more sacrificing than an Aztec at a nun convent.

They are also impervious to logic, debate and compromise.  If single and childless people ever dare to oppose any of their idiotic, self-serving programs they are branded as being ‘against the children.’

If you don’t want your property taxes raised for the umpteenth time to pay for another school bond…you are ‘against the children.’  If you think that rated R movies are peachy for network television…you are ‘against the children.’  If you think ‘per child’ tax credits are unfair and discriminatory…you are, all together now, ‘against the children.’  You get the picture.

To these people, if you don’t blindly and completely go along with their agenda you are doing the political equivalent of sending America’s children over to Neverland Ranch for a sleepover.  Leaders of mind-altering cults would kill for this kind of orthodoxy.

Enough is enough!

The single, childless people aren’t the greedy ones – we pay astronomical taxes (at higher rates) for services we largely don’t use.  And then, as a parting gift, we get lectured for not forking over more of our income! 

The true leeches in our society are those that have children they can’t afford – and then demand that the rest of us pick up their tab. 

Their entire life is one big game of the ‘Price is Right.’  Every time they have another kid they get another plinko chip.  ‘Here comes baby Junior, have another plinko chip!  There it goes…clink, clink, clink, clink, clink, clink, clink…Nameless replacement for Rod, tell them what they won!’  ‘Well, Bob….Mike and Judy are now the proud owners of a shiny new handicapped parking permit!  Now you can cruise the mall in style, acing out any mutilated burn victim for the privilege of parking your brand new car in a prime time spot!’

It’s time to stop this madness. 

Instead of spending millions of dollars on ‘No Child Left Behind,” how about instituting a policy of ‘Every Child Left Behind” at movie theatres, restaurants and on airplanes?  What about dropping the “credit” part of the $500 per child tax credit?  Or replacing ‘Spin City’ with ‘Sex and the City’ on network television?  How do you like them apples?  

It’s not so much fun when the shoe is on the other foot – or in the case of the handicapped parking spots, if the wheelchair is under the other derriere.

Those in our society who are married with children need to accept the fact that they have a pretty damn good deal.  Most childless people don’t complain when the breeders get another tax credit, pass another school bond or go completely insane when Justin Timberlake checks up on Janet Jackson’s mammarian health. 

But taking parking spots away from those who truly need them is a new low.  Even worse than being ‘against the children.’

John Phillips

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