Why isn't guaranteed maternity leave a "pro-life" imperative?

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We can certainly have mandated maternity leave, and as an employer, I would be fine with it, as long as everyone understands it will drive salaries across the board downward, the same way any benefit does.

My employees who opt not to use our medical benefits make a decent amount more in salary than those who do, since that is en expensive benefit. I don’t see paid maternity leave to be any different, though unlike medical benefits that have a fixed monthly cost for the employer, the true cost of maternity leave is not seen until it hits.

Perhaps a salary with the ability to receive an annual bonus if the maternity leave goes unused in the calendar year, or something like that.

In the end, any benefit you elect to take results in lower salaries since each one has a cost I have to account for, and margins that have to be maintained to remain solvent.
 
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It is indeed, and yet, when Catholic adoptions agencies in the northeastern part of the US refused to adopt out to homosexual couples, they were forced to close. That is sad, but not the fault of the Church. The state is the ones hurting the children in that and many) cases.
 
Pup7 said:
Sometimes people keep working just because they carry the better health insurance. I’ve seen that time and time again here.

Our health care system is a mess. I bet we all agree on that.
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I also agree that guaranteed health care coverage is very much a pro life/pro-family imperative.
 
There are, but as a Catholic, my preference would be to see the Church’s influence on these sort of things. Federal and state mandates can have ill consequences, and this is one example. Proponents of the state generally don’t care nearly as much about those they get involved with as much as they care about using that group to further some other agenda.

In this case, children in need of adoption rank far below homosexual “married” couples, which is sad for the children.

As mentioned, the only way this will work is if there are tax incentives for business, or higher tax revenues to fund the shortfall business would see.

I have told my employees I am willing to consider any benefit they want and not to hesitate to suggest it or bring it to me. If the benefit is elective (maternity leave, paid health insurance), it is pretty easy to accommodate, since I can offer those folks less money to pay for it and still hit whatever bottom line I have to achieve to stay afloat. If a benefit is mandatory (employer SEP IRA contributions), it has far greater impacts and needs more serious consideration before forcing everyone into it.
 
Dr_Meinheimer said:
We can certainly have mandated maternity leave, and as an employer, I would be fine with it, as long as everyone understands it will drive salaries across the board downward, the same way any benefit does.
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The main concern here is that it’s those at the bottom of the income pool that are most affected by the lack of paid maternity leave - many of whom have no benefits at all other than what is strictly legally mandated.
 
I assumed the point was until we get to the root of these issues, which does in fact require some basic analysis and fact-finding, you are ultimately putting band-aids on problems that are not correctable long-term by man-made band aids. I don’t see that as judgmental so much as common sense. Do we ACTUALLY want to correct society’s ills, or put a balm on it every time it wounds itself?

Granted, we need to do both IMO, but let’s not act like paid maternity leave somehow makes anyone more authentically pro-life. It might be a common-sense step for states, but it isn’t going to fix our larger moral issues.
 
And for them the best case scenario is that their higher paid coworkers will pay for the benefit because otherwise, their pay will drop too.
 
The trouble is a lot of them are already barely making ends meet. That’s the big pro-life concern; if a woman is working just to make ends meet and she gets pregnant, there’s a huge incentive for her to not have the baby if having the baby means you can’t pay rent anymore. (And having worked retail I can attest it’s not just single mothers - there were plenty of married women who were working to help support their families.)
 
I don’t think many will disagree, but what is the solution? You can;t force employers to simply pay the same wage if they increase benefits, especially as one as costly as protracted leave.

My business model for the company I started is predicated on certain margins (profit levels) and the model (and business) quickly fall apart if external forces tamper too much. That ultimately benefits no one.

So while I agree on its importance in theory, we need a practical way to add the benefits, and the only one I know is to lower salaries to account for that. Think about what a cost drain on the business it would be to suddenly have to pay someone months on end with no way to account for where that money is coming from. We need practical ways to do it, and likely that would involve phasing a model in over years versus just passing a law and saying “figure it out.”
 
Dr_Meinheimer said:
We need practical ways to do it, and likely that would involve phasing a model in over years versus just passing a law and saying “figure it out.”
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This is VERY true. And I think that’s why no one has a really good answer for any of this stuff we’d like to see…besides socializing it and paying for it with tax revenue. (I’m not saying that’s the answer or that I agree with that, but it seems as though that’s always where it ends up.)
 
Private domestic adoptions are outrageously expensive, THAT is a pro-life issue. We need to march and organize to get that changed. Make private domestic adoption fees 100% tax deductible would be a start. Get groups with real reach (Catholic Charities, Knights of Columbus both come to mind) to offer grants to cover private domestic adoption fees.

Homes for moms who are in crisis pregnancy where they can be safe and protected (yes, where they can travel from another state so they do not have to face the stigma back home or to flee a home situation) need to be part of our Catholic social outreach. In a perfect world, every parish would either have a group home or have a network of private homes who would house a woman while she is pregnant, raising a baby for that first year or so, learning life skills and job skills or placing that child for adoption.

And before the peanut gallery pipes in, if I did not live in a single bedroom house I WOULD open my home to a mom in a crisis pregnancy.

Lastly, educating our parish families about foster foster-to-adopt and breaking that stigma.

These ARE pro life issues.
 
Now this is something I can agree with. Not just the Church but I think especially in the US, there are tons (hundreds of thousands, if not millions) of pro-life people who can make a tremendous difference in the cause and their communities. Many do, but I think there is still a lot of potential to unleash.
 
I am a pro-choice agnostic, and this is an idea I can really get behind. In fact, I will even take it a step further and say I would like federal dollars to be used in this type of initiative. I am pro-choice, and for me that means I can get behind and support all choices…including carrying a pregnancy to term and putting the baby up for adoption.

I believe this would be putting money where mouths are, and so many pro-choice people I know would get behind it. It amazes me how expensive domestic adoption is, and I am never really given a solid explanation as to why it is.
 
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QwertyGirl said:
I am a pro-choice agnostic, and this is an idea I can really get behind. In fact, I will even take it a step further and say I would like federal dollars to be used in this type of initiative. I am pro-choice, and for me that means I can get behind and support all choices…including carrying a pregnancy to term and putting the baby up for adoption.

I believe this would be putting money where mouths are, and so many pro-choice people I know would get behind it. It amazes me how expensive domestic adoption is, and I am never really given a solid explanation as to why it is.
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Domestic infant adoption is expensive because you can get a cute, healthy white baby with a clean medical history.

Adoption from foster care is free after reimbursement. Sick infants are readily available as well as children from 2-17. Like those in other countries they may have issues. People are willing to go to another country because the legal ramifications of the foster system are still questionable.
 
Adoption also wouldn’t completely solve the expense issues. Women would still have to take unpaid time off (and in certain situations risk losing their jobs) in order to actually give birth and recover. And the hospital costs themselves can be extremely expensive.
 
Just to illustrate the problem with paid leave, as a small business owner I will not hire women of childbearing age. This is without any obligation to pay for their maternity leave. Having one of my few employees off for an extended time, even unpaid, puts not only my business and family in jeopardy, but the families of my other employees as well.
 
Brad1 said:
Just to illustrate the problem with paid leave, as a small business owner I will not hire women of childbearing age.
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If your business goes under, I have little empathy. You’re excluding women from about age 16 to 52, which is the average age of menopause in the US and most of the West. Exactly what do you think “childbearing age” is? You can get pregnant until you stop ovulating, I hate to tell you. And you shouldn’t be asking someone’s age anyway. Illegal to do so.

You’re also discriminating on the basis of sex and age, which is 100% illegal.

I have little to no empathy for that.
 
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FYI- while gross an employer CAN discriminate those under 40. The law only protects those over 40.
 
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