We hear about so many bad laws. We need to hear about the good ones. Like the UK law stating that a pregnant woman has the right to wee in a police officer’s helmet. (Thanks, K!)
2 thoughts on “Cheerful distraction”
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Feminist Philosophers 
Here’s yet another great reason to promote and preserve wilderness areas, parks and woods everywhere !
I fear that, like all too many claims about the law that make their way into newspaper articles, this is simply false. (Doubt should be occasioned by the fact that not even a vague reference to an explicit statute or court decision is given in the article.) A 2013 paper by the Law Commission, entitled “Legal Curiosities: Fact or Fable?”, considers the issue more carefully and rejects the legend:
“There is no generally applicable offence of urinating in public, although it is often an offence under
local byelaws. Local authorities are expected to exercise discretion in deciding whether to prosecute, based on, for example, the nature of the locality and the availability of public toilets nearby. There does not appear to be a specific exemption for pregnant women, but discretion not to charge might be exercised if a pregnant woman were caught short in public. However, it does seem unlikely that a police officer would offer his helmet for the purpose.” (p. 6, fn. omitted)
Click to access Legal_Oddities.pdf