A reader shared her story with us: in her ninth month of pregnancy (week 37), she went shopping with her three-year-old child. There were no free spaces in the car park in front of the store, so she parked in a disabled parking space. When a man pointed this out to her, the woman asked the store security guard whether she could leave her car in that space. The guard she asked gave his permission. Pleased with how things had turned out, the woman did her shopping.
When writing about the situation, the woman was only outraged that the man who reprimanded her had not even taken her condition into account. In the ninth month of pregnancy—as every woman who has given birth knows—it is not easy to move around, and help is not only welcome but necessary.
More than 250 comments were posted under the pregnant woman’s post. Ninety percent of them were a blunt attack on the mother-to-be. People wrote their malicious, offensive and hateful comments under their real names. They included such statements as: “all you need to do is put out to get better privileges,” “idiot,” “pregnancy is not an illness,” “shame,” “she has a fog of dust in her head,” and “mentally disabled.”
Some believed that a pregnant woman who parks in a disabled parking space simply deserved the hate—that is, words of contempt and hatred. Harsh words also appeared in comments from people with disabilities. There were only a handful of comments supporting the woman.
Is pregnancy a “blessed state” and should every mother-to-be be treated like a queen, or is the respect shown to a pregnant woman in Poland equal to that shown to an incubator with a baby inside?
Below are seven sample comments.