NY Times: Pregnant & Pushed Out of A Job

It’s illegal to fire a person from their job because they are pregnant. That’s a federal law. But in 43 states, it isn’t illegal to fire a person who needs accommodations to continue working during their pregnancy. Isn’t that a great hairsplitting?

“We aren’t firing you because you are pregnant, we are firing you because you go to the bathroom too often.”

“It’s not our policy to provide chairs for cashiers so if you can’t stand for eight hours at 37 weeks pregnant, we’ll have to let you go.”

Imagine.

Now try to imagine any of our stalwart “pro-lifers” in the US Congress doing anything about it. Too much of an imposition on business, they’d say. Too great a cost, they’d say.

Remember yesterday’s post about the Catholic Church vs. contraceptive access? “Pregnancy isn’t a disease” is a frequent antichoice refrain. Expanding that to “pregnancy isn’t a disability” would be simple as pie. (Not that right wingers care so much for disability protection either, mind you.) The free market response, the “find a job you can do” response, the “employers have the right” response would trip off their tongues as easily as they say their own names.

So we’re left having to make do with piecemeal, state by state responses. New York is addressing this now. Who knows who might be next? And the rest of us, well, we wait.

Did we need any more evidence that this is not a “prolife” country? Well here’s yet another little bit.

Source: amaditalks