While Representative Carolyn Maloney is introducing a federal bill to protect breastfeeding, some stage legislators in Ohio are pushing a bill requiring women to receive permission from the “father” of her fetus before seeking an abortion. So, if you are trying to explain to your children the real differences between boys and girls, it’s not what toys they play with or what clothes they wear; the difference comes once the boys and girls grow up to become men and women, at least in 2007 and looking out upon the political landscape potentially for some time to come, because society still believes women are unable to enjoy control over their reproductive lives. No comparable parallels exist for men, no real life mother-may-I games.

Protesting their “sometimes much infringed-upon rights” breastfeeding advocates regularly stage nurse-ins, during which breastfeeding women assemble in one place to nurse en masse, often to protest a specific incidence of lactation-related discrimination. Earlier this summer a public library in Hilo, Hawaii had about 40 nursing mothers and babes descend, for example. On August 8th, an attempt to break the Guinness Book of World Records for synchronized breastfeeding in multiple sites will occur at 10 AM local time in each of the 120 plus countries participating (if you’re a nursing mom interested in participating, register at the Breastfeeding World website to be counted). That mass action is part of World Breastfeeding Week, sponsored by such respected groups as the World Health Organization. These grassroots actions can be effective, in that they generate press and empower women (strength in numbers). Breastfeeding in public is not necessarily illegal depending on location; however, some of these actions mirror civil disobedience. Women are fighting for a right that they should—and theoretically at least—do already have. And this is what makes the whole concept of nurse-ins to gain traction for acceptance in public so frustrating.

Far more controlling than sending women to the hinterlands of public restrooms while breastfeeding is proposed legislation that a woman in Ohio would need to obtain a man’s permission before receiving an abortion. Simply declaring “paternity unknown” wouldn’t be an option. Women would be required to submit a list of possible “fathers” and then doctors would have to run paternity tests (all before the end of the first trimester). The bill, cloaked in language about fairness and fathers’ rights, is anti-abortion start to finish. Advocates for abortion access are quick to point out how these types of restrictions—waiting periods, parental consent laws—interfere with what can be an extremely cumbersome process, enough to take the abortion option off the table (the anti-abortion movement’s express goal). In this proposed legislation, claiming or naming parentage instantly personifies the fetus, and tethering a pregnant woman to a man’s approval, given that the pregnancy resides solely within the confines of her body (the parenting gig can be easily shared, not so pregnancy). These strictures are anti-choice and anti-woman. Here’s the real bottom line: in order to be a fully autonomous adult, a woman must retain control over her body.

A short video that recently hit YouTube drives this point home. A man stands in front of a Libertyville Ill. abortion clinic and asks anti-abortion demonstrators seeking to criminalize the procedure what they think the punishment for having an abortion should be if a woman has one despite its illegality. The range of responses includes: "I've never really thought about it." "I don't have an answer for that." "I don't know." "Just pray for them." Posing this question is part of an initiative by a new public-policy group called the National Institute for Reproductive Health; the organization sees this contradiction as natural centerpiece for a national conversation. By getting real about criminalization, perhaps people will realize how punitive that extreme actually is. They hope this slogan/question can shift the abortion debate: how much time should she do?

The fact that reproduction affects women differently than it does men is undisputable. From that initial swelling of her breasts to the babe in arms dependent upon her milk, she must be free to choose exactly how she wants to or can navigate these responsibilities. Society weighs in, and often in contradictory ways: pregnant celebrities are glorified while a 2002 addition to the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) allows states to cover unborn children but not the women carrying those pregnancies to term, meaning in essence that women aren’t to be covered for post-partum care (including such services as treatment of infection, treatment of complications after delivery, family planning, and mental health services). Women deserve autonomy. Certainly, we deserve to be treated like citizens rather than criminals, whether feeding babies or seeking health care. For no matter what our reproductive choices are, we are daughters and sisters. And sometimes, we are mothers, too.