When the HMO insisted on a psychiatric exam, Lightner refused because the suggestion that she was crazy to want a life without children was absurd and insulting. A second doctor refused to operate because one of his earlier patients regretted the procedure and committed suicide. Lightner was hurt that a woman who wants to have a baby is subjected to none of the humiliation she experienced even though having a baby is also a permanent choice. No one would have tried to talk her out of having a child. Belkin's rebuttal comes from The War Against Parents by Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Cornel West.
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Childless women now earn 90 percent of what their male counterparts earn while mothers earn only 73 percent. The strong Jewish pro-procreation bias developed in an era when contraception was not an option. Parenthood was almost inevitable for the sexually active. Barrenness was interpreted as a bitter curse. In the haftara for Rosh Hashana , we recall the harrowing prayer of Hannah as she prayed for a child at Shiloh and was mistaken for a drunk.