You get pregnant and you want respect, etc., based on that status. Accidental or not--doesn't make a difference, really. The point: pregnancy isn't a private matter.

Those of us who have chosen not to have kids know this: you have kids, and you expect everyone around you to honor this decision w/o question, quibble, etc.

Woo-hoo! Celebrate your friends' working reproductive systems! Cheer them on. It's like a porn version of a traditional fertility cult.

All must bow before Those Who Choose to Reproduce.

If you have kids, ask yourself this test question:

What if no one you knew (not even your family) asked about, were interested in, wanted to celebrate your kids and/or support your decision to have kids.

What if your kids (decision to have them, how to raise them, etc., their random accomplishments) were of no more interest to others than your choice of dish detergent.

You really just wanted kids for your own sake. It's a private decision--right?

If you are not bothered by this scenario, great.

But most (I want to say all) parents assume their reproductive decisions are of intense interest to others. Except when they don't want to hear it.

Most people shouldn't have kids. Starting with the Palins, but moving on...

Obamas shouldn't have had children since all they could think to do with them was to let them be MENTORED by hate preacher Reverend Wright and then use them as heart string tugs for the voting public.

Aren't my children [who should be attending school or associating with their friends] adorable as they help garner me the mommy vote?

Thank you for being soooooo fair and balanced and non-partisan.

I don't have to be fair, balanced, or non-partisan. I'm an American. I can be as patronizing and dismissive as I want to be to Mrs. Palin. She's a yokel and that's being kind.

In merely 4 days, the Palins have done what it took the Clintons 20 years to do, become a national soap opera. What's next, we discover Mrs. Palin was born a man?

(She looks like a drag queen.)

You don't like how I talk about your people--go read the First Amendment before the GOP sells it to China.

If you have kids, ask yourself this test question:

What if no one you knew (not even your family) asked about, were interested in, wanted to celebrate your kids and/or support your decision to have kids.

What if your kids (decision to have them, how to raise them, etc., their random accomplishments) were of no more interest to others than your choice of dish detergent.

You really just wanted kids for your own sake. It's a private decision--right?

So what if no one wanted to ask about, be interested in, want to celebrate and/or support my decision to have kids? It was my decision to have them not theirs. Is it nice when people ask, are interested in, want to celebrate and/or support a couples or single persons decision to have children? Sure, but it certainly isn't a necessity when people want to have children.

If only deciding to have kids and how to raise them was of no more interest to others than my choice of dish detergent. Too many people butt their noses into the way people raise their kids and are offended when you tell them to mind their own business.

Yes, I really just wanted kids for my own sake. Yes, it is a private decision. No one forced me to want or have children. If we could have afforded to have more children we would have.

Seems to me that people that choose not to have children can't understand why anyone would want to have children. Just remember that if you parents hadn't decided that they wanted to have children you wouldn't be here having this discussion.