Moms-to-be in California will find it easier to shop for baby, if California lawmakers go through with a plan to grant them special parking privileges.

Republican Assemblyman, Chuck DeVore, has proposed legislation that would grant pregnant women "temporarily disabled" parking placards from the Department of Motor Vehicles during the final three months of pregnancy and the first two months after birth. The legislation would apply to more than a half-million women who give birth every year in California.

"Let's be reasonable here: There are challenges, physical challenges, that arise as a natural part of life," DeVore said of pregnancy. "It certainly makes you realize that for that very short period of time in their pregnancy, they are certainly by any practical definition (impaired)."

A similar bill was proposed four years ago but was shot down in a hail of controversy.

Opponents of the new proposal, Assembly Bill 1940, say pregnant women should be exercising as much as possible and that the legislation could reduce parking for motorists with more serious disabilities.

"We really want pregnant women to be active, to be moving, to be walking," said Shannon Smith-Crowley of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' California chapter, which opposes AB 1940. She added that a woman with complications from pregnancy could qualify for a temporary parking placard under existing law.

Helen Grieco, executive director of the California chapter of the National Organization for Women, said her organization had trouble with the idea of "framing pregnancy as a disability," when, in fact, it was a normal part of life.

Moms and moms-to-be, what are your thoughts?

[SB]