"There is, however, a single Supreme Court decision which announces an exception to the thirteenth amendment broad enough to accommodate forced childbearing. In Robertson v. Baldwin, a divided Court upheld against a thirteenth amendment challenge a statute authorizing the forcible return of deserting seamen to their vessels. The exception to the amendment carved out in Robertson is far broader than that of the alter conscription cases. But, as I will explain, Robertson is no longer good law. Justice Brown, writing for the Court, relied on four arguments. First, he held that “involuntary servitude” does not include any servitude entered into voluntarily, and that “an individual may, for a valuable consideration, contract for the surrender of his personal liberty for a definite time and for a recognized purpose, and subordinate his going and coming to the will of another during the continuance of the contract;not that all such contracts would be lawful, but that a servitude which was knowingly and willingly entered into could not be termed involuntary.” This might be construed to encompass pregnancy, at least in cases in which the woman freely consented to sex and thus, some will say, voluntarily undertook the risk of conception. For all the reason enumerated earlier, this voluntariness is often suspect, but since Brown abjured a blanket inalienability rule, his reasoning might permit the state to demand that women prove this on a case-by-case basis. Second, he held that “the amendment was not intended to introduce any novel doctrine with respect to certain descriptions of service which have always been treated as exceptional; such as military and naval enlistments,” and concluded that “services which have from time immemorial been treated as exceptional shall not be regarded as within its purview.” A woman’s duty to bear children might be characterize as such an exceptional service, although this cannot easily be reconciled with the fourteenth amendment cases noted above. Third, Justice Brown argued that such exceptions should be recognized as “arising from the necessities of the case.” Unlike the conscription cases, however, the necessity that Brown deemed sufficient to justify the imposition was private need, not danger to the polity. The risk that deserting sailors pose to a ship is, of course, considerably less than the danger that abortion poses to a fetus. Fourth, he observed that Congress had made “very careful provisions. . . for the protection of seamen . . . as far as possible, against the consequences of their own ignorance and improvidence,” and concluded that “seamen are treated by Congress . . . as deficient in that full and intelligent responsibility for their acts which is accredited to ordinary adults, as needing the protection of the law . . . .” So much for compulsory service being an honorable badge of citizenship. This rather seems analogous to the common law’s traditional treatment of women as incompetents."