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Johnsen is obviously referring to women who seek to prevent or terminate a pregnancy, but are denied their reproductive rights. The status of slavery does not apply to women carrying a planned or wanted pregnancy. However, as Johnsen states, "forced pregnancy requires a woman to provide continuous physical servitude to the fetus," this phrase being her assertion of a situation that can be compared to slavery. This distinction between forced and consensual pregnancy is one that you ignore in your opinion piece. Not all pregnant women are slaves, because some chose to become pregnant or chose to continue an unplanned pregnancy, which is an active, affirmative choice a woman should be able to make about her body and her pregnancy. There is no doubt that pregnancy and motherhood are physically and emotionally demanding work, although you avoided using that word in your piece. If work is unpaid and involuntary, it is slavery. If work is unpaid and voluntary, it is not slavery. Even women who are carrying a wanted pregnancy consider it a burden. Pregnancy and childbirth are strenuous, stressful and dangerous, but women who intend to get pregnant, or who embrace an unexpected pregnancy accept this risk willingly and rejoice in their decision. This is, of course, in contrast to women who do not wish to carry their pregnancy to term. Johnsen is simply supporting the idea that women who do not wish to undertake the risk and responsibility of a pregnancy should not be forced to do so. You also made a comment that before the Roe v. Wade decision, women had no choice but to give birth. I would just like to remind you that women in that time, instead of having access to safe, legal abortions, instead died trying to induce miscarriages or obtaining unsafe and illegal abortions. You also ask the question "what crime did the woman commit that she should become a slave"? Are you insinuating that premarital sex, or sex not for the purpose of procreation is a crime punishable by slavery? I hope not. I would also like to point out that most slaves, especially the ones held for centuries in this country, were not slaves because they had committed any crime, they were slaves because another culture or tribe physically forced them into slavery. Johnsen does not demean women with her opinion, she is insisting rather that each woman's individual choices about her body and life be recognized and respected. By suggesting that forced pregnancy is slavery, she actually giving more value to those who bear and raise children by asserting that these women are working women. She implies that this work has such a significant value that for a woman to do it against her will is slavery. It is not a disservice to women to recognize and value motherhood as work, nor is it a disservice to women to demand that this work only occur in instances where the woman gives her consent. What is detrimental to women is the idea that pregnancy and motherhood are an obligation, and to force a women who are unwilling or unable to perform these tasks to do them against their will.