The House of Representatives voted yesterday to pass legislation protecting unborn life after the bill was brought up for a vote by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). No Democrat voted against it while the Republican were divided between supporters and opponents of the unborn.
Joe Biden has announced his support for the legislation while Trump has not.
The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act would require bosses to provide reasonable accommodations at work to pregnant women and their unborn children. The act is modeled on the 30-year-old Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires employers to work with disabled employees to find reasonable fixes at work so they can continue to do their jobs. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) sponsored the bill, along with Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), Chairman of the Education and Labor Committee.
Republican Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) took to the floor to oppose the bill. She said the bill didn’t protect employers’ religious rights, though didn’t explain exactly how. Perhaps employers have the religious right to consider their employee's unborn child to be nothing of value.
Pregnant women have been told by their bosses, sometimes directly and other times clear but indirectly, that if they want to keep their job, they should get an abortion. None the less, scores of Republicans who claim to be anti-abortion voted against the bill. Thoughtful Catholics have every right to question their anti-abortion sincerity.
The accommodations pregnant women require at work are fairly simple: a stool for a cashier to sit on while working the register, light-lifting duty for warehouse workers, a water bottle for a retail worker on the shop floor or a different-sized uniform for a pregnant police officer. Sometimes pregnant women just need a few more bathroom breaks or time to go to the doctor. Other times, they need to be kept away from exposure to workplace chemicals that could cause an involuntary abortion. However, without such accommodations, unborn babies are at risk of harm or death.
The Democrats showed that women get fired or sent on unpaid leave for being with child. That means they’re left without income just when they really need a paycheck. The consequences can be devastating: Democrats mentioned a woman who wound up homeless when she was in her third trimester and others forced to apply for food stamps.
“When companies refuse to accommodate for pregnancy-related needs it doesn’t just hurt the person being discriminated against it hurts the entire family,” said Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) on the House floor Thursday.
Many women have little choice to keep working, putting their lives and their pregnancies at risk. A few years ago at a warehouse in Memphis, several women had miscarriages after they were denied lighter lifting duties.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden applauded the bill’s passage and urged the Senate to take it up. “While President Trump called pregnancy ‘an inconvenience’ for businesses, Vice President Biden believes that pregnant workers shouldn’t have to choose between their health and their work,” said Mariel Sáez, the women’s media director for the Biden campaign. “He strongly supports the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and included it in his agenda to build America back better for women. The bill’s protections for pregnant workers are commonsense and vital — especially in the face of this pandemic.”
The bill passed Thursday would also prohibit employers from firing women simply for asking for accommodations or not hiring a woman because she’s pregnant and might need some temporary fixes to work.
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