LEAVE RIHANNA ALONE.

I can remember an episode of Australian drama The Flying Doctors, where they held a bush clinic and a small girl begged her mother to let her into a room where the door was closed, as she’d just hurt her knee. Her mother was in there with the small girl’s older sister, who, shock horror, was a teenager and pregnant and it seemed to have brought shame on the family. The older daughter was wearing a loose fitting maternity dress.

Around five years later, Demi Moore appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair naked, side on, showing her bump, in a move that left conservatives aghast. Now, we have Rihanna proudly exposing her bump and the pearl-clutching conservatives are reacting with horror on some pages. I doubt that Rihanna cares for the opinions of the pearl-clutching conservatives, but how Rihanna dresses while pregnant is her business and nobody else’s.

I saw one conservative male suggest that it was cheap and that there was nothing beautiful about a pregnant bump. To that, I say, “No, it is not cheap.” Okay, I have seen comments from pregnant women that the reflux, the constipation and other side-effects are negative, but I also say this to the other side of Rihanna. I saw a story about a woman who was pregnant who had another older woman touch her pregnant bump without asking and how upset she was. I say, no matter how beautiful you may think a pregnant woman is, it is still her body and you don’t have the right to touch it without her permission.

I know many people will melt at the story that a pregnant woman has gone for a scan and her husband or wife (sperm donors and IVF) has jumped up and kissed the woman’s stomach when they see the foetus moving around inside, and there are pictures on the internet of a woman laying back and her husband or wife is using a stethoscope to listen to the foetal heartbeat, but that is consensual.

The news correspondents have no right to judge Rihanna for how she dresses while pregnant, and nobody has the right to touch her without her permission, but I also say that some of those clutching at their pearls and reacting with disgust are anti-abortionists. So, just like pro-choice people say, “My body, My choice,” how Rihanna dresses while pregnant is “Her body, Her choice,” and people should show some respect.