THE New York Times has lectured the world on the “right” to terminate a pregnancy (and the life of an unborn child) millions of times. The implication is that pregnancy is a grave inconvenience. Infertile couples willing to adopt newborns are abundant, so it’s not that a woman absolutely must be inconvenienced after she delivers her child.

Strangely enough (or logically enough), pregnancy is not at all considered an inconvenience if a woman is achieving something really impressive, perhaps reaching for some vanity goal that will make her the exciting and dynamic transcendence of stale old femininity, the perfect synthesis of male and female. In that case, pregnancy is so normal and natural and easy that women should carry on doing everything they normally do, even if what they normally do involves all the stresses that go along with extreme ambition. This weekend, reporter Lindsay Crouse effused about elite runners who train for marathons and other races while pregnant, athletes such as Alysia Montaño, an Olympian, who ran an 800-meter race in June during her eighth month of pregnancy:

“I wanted to help clear up the stigma around women exercising during pregnancy, which baffled me,” Montaño said. “People sometimes act like being pregnant is a nine-month death sentence, like you should lie in bed all day. I wanted to be an example for women starting a family while continuing a career, whatever that might be. I was still surprised by how many people paid attention.”

Clara Horowitz Peterson, above, has trained in the late stages of pregnancy. To her credit, Peterson, who is pregnant with her fourth child, believes having children while young is important, and an athlete obviously may be capable of this kind of exertion while pregnant. But Peterson is also willing to take serious risks with her children in utero. Even highly-tuned athletes trip. It’s not impossible.

To bounce back for the trials, Peterson said, she breast-fed her second child for only five weeks — finding that the hormones related to breast-feeding made her feel sluggish — and dropped the 20 pounds she typically gained during pregnancy in eight weeks without dieting. (She breast-fed her third child for six months.)

Interesting. Breastmilk doesn’t make a baby feel sluggish, quite the opposite. This, and Peterson’s immodest poses in skimpy and extremely unflattering track wear, suggests that while she may be physically maternal, her priorities are not always maternal.

She qualified for the 2012 United States Olympic marathon trials just four months after delivering her second child, and she logged a 2-hour-35-minute time at the race four months later.

I guess her children learned how to care for themselves quickly. That’s the great thing about infants. They are so darn independent. “See ya’ later, Mom.”

“We still don’t have good science to guide us,” said Dr. Aaron Baggish, associate director of the cardiovascular performance program at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, which counsels elite athletes through pregnancy. “But unequivocally I think women should exercise through pregnancy, both for their baby and their own health. The body has evolved that way. Your baseline fitness level is the best guideline: Elite athletes start out with a higher threshold, so they can do more.”

Perhaps science will someday catch up with women such as this one, who is now suffering from incontinence due to running during pregnancy. Or perhaps science will catch up with women in less exalted careers such as the firefighter Christi Rodgers, women who push themselves during pregnancy and its immediate aftermath, even at the risk of their own lives.

— Comments —

Hurricane Betsy writes:

Another grave mistake is for women to be active right after delivery.  Every traditional society that I’m aware of requires a woman who’s just had a baby to rest for 30-40 days. There are semicommunal religious groups where I live where this is enforced.  During this time, other women come in to her home to do the housework and cooking.  The new mother just rests a lot and feeds the baby.  Yes, I know there’s this burst of crazy energy after delivery, but that has to be ignored.

That runner exposing  her abdomen would have been considered ghastly in old Japan (and maybe modern Japan, too).  They thought that the pregnant belly should be kept warm and supported with a thing called a hara-maki.  And never exposed in that way to the elements.

I can’t believe for a moment that all that running and other athletic activities are good for woman and baby.  Down the line, damage will be seen, probably something much worse than leaking urine.

I shovelled snow, did housework, walked and rode bike a bit while pregnant.  That was plenty.  I never ran once.

Josh F. writes:

There is so much obscenity and absurdity in the combination of these two stories of “women” athletes and firefighter (radical female liberationist to be more truthfully exacting), one barely knows where to start.  But the true lesson is so subtle as to be totally missed.

What is it to be a firefighter if a morbidly obese AND recently delivering mother can do it?  What is it to run a marathon if at 8 months pregnant a “woman” can do it OR after just fours month since delivering, this same “woman” qualifies for the Olympics?  What of the barely-out-of diapers lad who climbed Mt. Everest?  What of the prepubescent girl who sailed the entire globe?

Let’s face it…  These endeavors, whatever they may be, are slowly but surely being trivialized and denigrated to accommodate an extreme fringe of radical female liberationists who inexplicably get to go by the name of “feminists.”

Whether this relentless encroachment pushes boys and men to do more extreme things or whether it drives them into their “shells,” “we” will see one outcome or the other and almost certainly both.  This will go hand and hand with an increase in death and destruction for the radical female liberationists and those a slave to their creed.

P.S. The sheer absurdity of pregnant “athlete” should be self-evident.

Laura writes:

The comments after the Times article are a real glimpse of feminist thinking on pregnancy. Here is one:

Kiki de Montaparnasse tells in her autiobiography that she was born while her mother was working on a field, harvesting. She stopped for a while, crouched, and out went Kiki. Women bodies, when fit, are fully prepared to acomodate pregnancy to almost any physical [sic] duty they perform. Kiki’s mother did it out of necessity; these women do it out of personal election. Esthetically is not the nicest thing [sic], and psychologically is some type of evolutionary regression, maybe a way to keep old forms of survival. But who cares.

The modern-day equivalent of crouching in a field is working right up to delivery and soon after. What is liberating for elite athletes is enslavement for the ordinary woman and child neglect.

Marissa writes:

“Another grave mistake is for women to be active right after delivery. Every traditional society that I’m aware of requires a woman who’s just had a baby to rest for 30-40 days. “

I just recently learned about this from a new friend in a traditional parish of which I am a member. She is Hispanic and it’s called “cuarantena”. The mother and baby rest for 40 days, she must stay warm and covered up (essentially wear pants or tights under her skirt/dress), no fans, no showering or activities that will get the mother cold. It’s very interesting and speaks of a culture where even the poorest parts of society took care of a new mother. I’d take it any day over a run in the park with my baby weight bouncing up and down and my child…where? Bouncing along in a carriage or home without me?

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