A neat tidbit from the slacktivist. I’ve excerpted a bit here:
“If you’re a disabled worker, then you’re protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act. If you’re a pregnant worker and not hindered in job performance, or if you’re pregnant and completely unable to work, then you’re protected under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. But if you’re a pregnant worker and able to perform some, but not all, of the functions of your job, then you slip through the cracks and you’re SOL. That means that some pregnant women may be forced to choose between keeping their job and keeping their pregnancy.
Now, since the “pro-life” and “pro-family” movements of the religious right are all about preventing pregnant women from choosing not to keep their pregnancies, this would seem like legislation they ought to be supporting.
And yet, as I noted last month, I haven’t yet seen any support for this, or even any mention of it, among such groups. The PWFA would help to remove one powerful economic incentive for abortion — a real situation that real people face. Anti-abortion groups therefore ought to support it. But if any of them are supporting it, they’re doing so very, very quietly.
Maybe I’d just missed their statements backing this bill? To double-check, I asked the folks at NWLC if they had heard of any support for this workplace protection from anti-abortion groups. Liz Watson, a senior advisor at NWLC, responded:
Supporting pregnant workers so that they can continue their jobs and have healthy pregnancies, is something people of all political stripes should agree on, regardless of their stance on other issues, including abortion. As yet, we are not aware of any support from pro-life groups, however.”
Hypocrisy in action. *sigh*
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
7 comments
August 13, 2012 at 10:26 am
tildeb
Wow. Hypocrisy is exactly right.
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August 13, 2012 at 11:01 am
Rob F
That’s because the goal is not to get rid of abortion, but rather to undo the sexual revolution and roll back women’s rights.
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August 13, 2012 at 11:33 am
The Arbourist
At least if they would be upfront about it, it would be okay. But as soon in, argument, you call them on it the focus magically narrows to “the baby” in some sort of mystical sense divorced from the physical reality of it being inside another’s body.
Drives me buggy some days. :/
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August 13, 2012 at 11:42 am
Thor
If the anti-choice groups are for the woman staying home and having babies, then you might think that they would be against this bill as they don’t want pregnant women to be in the workplace.
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August 13, 2012 at 1:01 pm
The Intransigent One
And you’d think, if they want women staying home and having babies, they’d be backing things like paid maternity leave, and generous welfare/WIC/etc. for single moms of small children. Oh wait.
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August 13, 2012 at 4:26 pm
Reneta Scian
Making life hard on women is part of their goal. Just like with any oppressed class, and myself included in that, they make life and doing the things we need to do as hard as possible so that we can be “kept under thumb”, controlled, and relegated to “whatever they feel gracious enough to give”.
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August 13, 2012 at 4:38 pm
Reneta Scian
I’d like to include that welfare for mothers is usually precariously balanced on her vulnerabilities, I.E. doesn’t make enough money to stop working, but makes too much money to get support. Women who leave work to have children have a harder time getting a new/or the same job afterwards. Thus she gets stuck being a “professional mother” paid by welfare, or if she is married and gets stuck in that trap “The professional housewife”. Once she’s been out of the workforce for even longer it’s worse. It’s a trap, well designed and insidious in nature.
It’s just similar to the dilemma of disabled people in the work force. It’s a subtle way of keeping those who may dissent about the inequality of the system from having the means or platform to do so. Perhaps though, I am over-thinking this, or giving intent where there is none. However, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that government hasn’t “filled that gap yet” on any similar issues.
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