As Charlottetown mulls special street parking for pregnant women, who’s next for special treatment?

It's the ultimate motherhood issue.

Charlottetown, the cradle of Canadian Confederation, is considering reserving special street parking spaces for pregnant women and new parents.

But the laudable idea of making life easier for expectant women or mum's toting infants and all their gear is running into a little resistance.

If they get special pink-painted spaces being proposed by Charlottetown Coun. Ed Rice and other supported by colleagues, who's next for special treatment?

The idea came from new mum Angela Court, who complained she'd given up shopping downtown when she was pregnant with her daughter because parking was so hard to find. Things haven't changed now that Abigail is a toddler, she said.

"I think that there's a lot of Island-owned businesses that I would have shopped at in the last year and a half if they had more accessible parking for little ones and pregnant people," Court told CBC News.

Court said the special metered parking spaces would help boost business. Coun. Cecil Villard, who sits on the city's police committee that will study the idea, noted outlying big-box stores already designate pink parking spots for mums and mums-to-be.

"Expectant mothers are obviously buying a lot of clothes and things they need for small children," he told CBC News. "They're good shoppers, they spend money, and it would be nice to think that we could have them spend it downtown."

Rice said he expects little opposition and the change could take effect as early as next month.

“Who can fight motherhood?" he told the National Post. "Who can fight wanting to get customers downtown?”

But how do you police this?

Court and her supporters say the pink spaces would be used on the honour system, presumably with no special designator on the vehicle like the hanging badges needed to use spaces reserved for the disabled.

[ Related: Fredericton studies special parking spots for women ]

Human nature being what it is, the temptation to grab a convenient parking space can be pretty strong.

I've chewed out my share of able-bodied people pulling into disabled-parking spaces (my wife has MS), "just for a minute." Some are shamed into backing out but usually I get the finger or suddenly become invisible.

We got a whiff of the problem when some Halifax mothers complained that non-mums were taking spaces reserved for them at local malls, according to a 2011 CBC News story.

"It's often men, just lazy men, or lazy other people who just say they're in a hurry and they need those spots more than we do," Jacqueline Potvin Boucher told CBC News.

"Many of us have approached those people and asked them why they're in the spots, but they just disregard any comments we say and shove us by."

A survey in Britain found two-thirds of mothers polled said they were frustrated because parking-lot spaces reserved for them were being hogged by others, according to the Daily Mail.

But beyond the additional anxiety created by fighting over reserved spaces, the question arises, how many classes of privileged parkers should we have?

No one questions that the disabled should be given extra-wide spaces so they can get out their walkers or wheelchairs. And businesses are free to designate other spaces on their private parking lots for pregnant mums, families with kids or whoever else they deem worthy of extra attention.

But legislating public street parking seems to be opening another door.

What about people who suffer from health conditions that don't merit a disabled placard? Charlottown Coun. Rob Lantz told the Post he heard from a resident who suffers from chronic plantar fasciitis that makes walking painful but she doesn't qualify for a disabled permit.

[ Related: Pregnant parking considered for Charlottetown ]

“Where do you draw the line with people, for instance, like this woman who contacted me this morning?” Lantz told the Post. “I don’t mean to be flippant, but what about obese people? Do they get special permits because they can’t walk very far?”

Why stop there. What about the incontinent, who might need spaces close to washroom facilities?

Or someone like me, who forgets where he parked? I need to be right outside the door.