Astonishingly, on December 7, 1976, a majority of the Supreme Court agreed. Rehnquist wrote for the majority that pregnancy was special, because unlike race or gender itself, it was often “voluntarily undertaken and desired.” The message was clear: Once you did the deed, you had to pay the price—that is, if you were a woman. Justices William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall protested in their dissent that GE hadn’t left out any “so-called ‘voluntary’ disabilities including sport injuries, attempted suicides, venereal disease, disabilities incurred in the commission of a crime or during a fight,
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