Here's a fun bit of idiocy.
Since 1988, federal law has required alcohol manufacturers to carry warning labels notifying pregnant women that drinking is dangerous for the health of their unborn children. Here's the warning:
GOVERNMENT WARNING:
(1) According to the Surgeon General, women should not drink alcoholic beverages during pregnancy because of the risk of birth defects.
So on the one hand, the government (in this case, the federal government) is telling women that they shouldn't drink because it could literally ruin the lives of their unborn children.
On the other hand, the City of New York's government wants you to know that refusing to serve alcohol to pregnant women—for reasons that the federal government literally puts on every bottle of liquor and every can of beer—is a violation of their basic rights.
No, seriously:
For the first time, the city is explicitly prohibiting restaurants and bars from refusing alcoholic drink orders to mothers-to-be, with new guidelines that say doing so would represent discrimination under the city’s Human Rights Law.
"While covered entities may attempt to justify certain categorical exclusions based on maternal or fetal safety, using safety as a pretext for discrimination or as a way to reinforce traditional gender norms or stereotypes is unlawful," the guidance released by the Commission on Human Rights on Friday says.
I'm not going to get into the debate over whether or not it is in fact a low-risk activity for a preggo lady to have a glass of wine or two during the course of her childbearing. I'm not going to get into it not because there's a robust discourse on the matter, but because the New York City Commission on Human Rights doesn't get into it. They simply dgaf. Worrying about the health and development of an unborn child is merely "reinforcing traditional gender norms or stereotypes," after all.
We live in deeply unserious, fundamentally insane times.