I check my Facebook page on most days. Photos of holidays, marriages, people getting pregnant: my feed is full of the lives of friends from across the world getting on with the daily business of living, and I feel privileged to have them shared with me. But I don’t always think about that truth, not until something big happens. Sometimes, without the author even knowing it.

In March, an old friend in San Francisco posted something onto their feed—a quick thought, done from an iphone, on the bus or in a café, and then he moved on. It said:

“I’ll never fail to be amazed at the number of complete strangers who think they have the right to tell me who I am allowed to fall in love with, marry and have kids with. Back off.”

And he was right.

Gay Marriage: Differences Over Same Sex Marriage Shouldn’t Dissolve Our Shared Humanity

In the last few months, few of us have been left untouched by the public discourse over gay marriage. It has raged across our computer monitors and television screens, with left and right wing pundits fighting over what has increasingly felt like an out of touch debate – one which the public had decided on years ago.

This year, Western governments started to catch up. On July 17th, same sex marriage was signed into law in the UK, while in France it has been legal since May. In the US, 15 states currently support it.

But what my friend said still stands. We have made an intrusive public debate out of what should be a private act of freedom. That said, it has not been the public nature of this debate that has disturbed me. After all, marriage is a part of public life and a legitimate source and topic of debate. What has been at issue has been the vehemence of our social conduct over the last few months; the public dragging of private lives and bodies to a baying, news-reading crowd.

From the local government councillor who likened gay marriage to allowing people to engage in bestiality, to the politicians who have said marriage is devoid of meaning if gay people engage in it, the public debate over same sex unions has been conducted in a different tone to those that have gone before.

In an act of collective social amnesia, we have forgotten that our debates over same sex marriage are debates about people. It is this understanding of shared common humanity which has been lost in our public dialogues over the rights and wrongs of how people behave and live in the past few months.

Pregnant Women: Private Bodies Under Public Scrutiny

For pregnant women too, the lines between private choice and public good have been blurred.

From the case where a woman was harassed in the street for running because she was pregnant, to the recent instances where women have been refused access to alcohol in bars, or been forced by legislation to stop smoking, both same sex couples and pregnant women have seen their lives and their bodies increasingly become communal property, to be argued over and judged, whilst simultaneously being dispossessed of their right to make choices for themselves.

In the case of women, in our rush to impart inherited myths over pregnancy and birth, there has been a frightening growth in publicly sanctioned restrictions on women’s behavior in the name of the “just to be safe” mantra. In Canada, current recommendations from the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists suggest that women who might become pregnant should abstain from drinking altogether, “just in case they get pregnant at some point.” This is despite the fact that there is little to no evidence to link moderate drinking to any kind of negative baby-associated consequences.

Women are told not to eat unpasteurised cheese (again, a myth, as this is not the source of Listeria). Whilst in the UK, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists tells women to avoid just about anything you could encounter in the daily course of living, from sitting inside a new car to shower gel and food in tin cans. Unless women are to retire to the birthing chamber for the duration of their pregnancy, it is hard to see how any woman could do enough to conform to such impossible standards (and if that birthing chamber has new furniture in it, beware, because that too is dangerous).

Every woman knows she will be bombarded with a mixture of advice and old wives’ foolery over how she should behave whilst pregnant. What is frightening is that this pressure isn’t just emanating from the average idiot, it is official Government guidance.

Things are getting worse too. In an act reminiscent of an Orwellian state, 38 US States have now passed laws on the rights of the foetus. For Bei Bei Shuai who tried to kill herself in 2011, it meant she was charged by the State of Indiana for murder, because she had been pregnant at the time of her attempt.

For both gay people and pregnant women, the degree of public ownership over private lives is far greater than for most. Where heterosexual people are free to marry, have children, or kiss in public without fear of a hostile response, gay people are evicted out of hotel rooms in the UK. Both, too, seem to be subject to the use of moral righteousness as a justification for the restriction of their basic rights.

In our rush to deny that a woman drink at the bar or to tell that gay couple to keep their hands to themselves, we have forgotten the first rule of public discourse, that people should be treated with kindness and respect, even when we do not agree with them.

So what’s the point?

On the face of it, the undue scrutiny and public judgements both same sex couples and pregnant women face could be dismissed as issues over “lifestyle choice.” Consider the mother-to-be who has a glass of chardonnay out in the garden or the gay couple who would like you to acknowledge their way of life. To talk about either as a lifestyle issue is to trivialise their concerns in order to lessen them. But both serve to show just how ill-informed our public conscience can be, and it should lead us to question how far collective moral judgements have penetrated into the private sphere.

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By Stephanie
Cartoon by Dina