Ladies, the CDC Wants You to Stop Drinking Unless You Are on Birth Control

The CDC issued an important notice to the women of the world today, which can be paraphrased thusly: If you are of childbearing age, please remember that your body should mainly be considered a vessel for penises and babies.

"Alcohol can permanently harm a developing baby before a woman knows she is pregnant," Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told USA Today. "About half of all pregnancies in the United States are unplanned, and even if planned, most women won't know they are pregnant for the first month or so, when they might still be drinking."

And so, officials are saying that women who could potentially get pregnant should avoid alcohol unless they're using contraception.

The CDC's site offers some scary doctor-holding-sonogram pictures and a catchy slogan: "Why take the risk?"

Possible rewrite ideas: "Why take the risk, slut?" or "Your body never belonged to you in the first place!"

There is no winning if you are a woman with functioning ovaries who wants to have sexual intercourse with a man with functioning testicles these days. There's this Zika virus situation, which means you can't travel to a bunch of fun places if you might possibly get pregnant and then can't access or are morally restricted from a safe abortion, and also don't feel like giving birth to and watching the suffering of a baby with a tiny head. Also, no worries but Zika is now transmitted through sex. Another blow for the heterosexual female.

All of this, of course, just adds a special layer of anxiety to the constant, nagging fear that many women have that they could possibly be pregnant.

No word yet on if the CDC plans to hand out free birth control to all women between the ages of 13 and 50, or if men of working-sperm-producing age should stop drinking unless they have had a vasectomy or are always wearing a condom. Maybe those are coming?

Willamette Week