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

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Ok let me rephrase: do you believe that a renewed emphasis on the Church’s teaching on sexual morality would lower the abortion rate?

As you know, the church teaches that sex is reserved for marriage. That children are a blessing; a gift from God. That sex is necessarily unitive and procreative.
 
It’s pretty hard to buy a house on one income.

Or pay rent in a decent neighborhood.

It’s not just about materialism. It’s about the overall cost of living.

Come up where I am and look at the average cost of a 1000 sq ft home (that’s pretty tiny) with no yard and barely a driveway. It’s over $250k. Some places it’s over $300k. These aren’t ritzy areas or fancy homes either.

And rent up here is preposterous.

The answer isn’t always “they can move”.
 
KJW5551 said:
Ok let me rephrase: do you believe that a renewed emphasis on the Church’s teaching on sexual morality would lower the abortion rate?

As you know, the church teaches that sex is reserved for marriage. That children are a blessing; a gift from God. That sex is necessarily unitive and procreative.
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Here’s the deal, though: not everyone on the earth is Catholic and not everyone feels the same way we do. So among non-Catholics no, it likely wouldn’t have the dramatic effect you and I both think it should.

Not currently.

I think doing more to show options outside of the current thought might have an effect. But when abstinence only was the rule about 16 years ago in schools in the US, it didn’t keep teen pregnancy rates down.
 
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Which is why I suggested things like tax credits and help with mortgages, utilities and food.

Basically, everyone wants to get 12 weeks off with full time pay and feel like they “earned” it. Which is why everyone wants the employer involved.
 
Can’t afford to provide essential necessities for children without government subsidies? Then don’t have children. And if the government is funding maternity leave in any way, it’s a subsidy, directly or not.
Beyond basic necessities, Catholic Christians are called to poverty, not material comfort.
 
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KathleenT said:
Which is why I suggested things like tax credits and help with mortgages, utilities and food.

Basically, everyone wants to get 12 weeks off with full time pay and feel like they “earned” it. Which is why everyone wants the employer involved.
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This isn’t about the poor.
This is about everyone.

We already have utility assistance, WIC, and subsidized housing.

That is not what this is about.

The 12 weeks is what the US military gets. No one said give that to everyone.

But I guess my U.K. relatives who get an entire year off with pay as a benefit are just freeloading. And no, they’re not poor. They’re as middle class as I am.
 
I agree that adoption is a loving option, but I don’t know if there are enough adoptive parents to take in all of the babies born to single and/or poor mothers. It’s also not in the best interests of EVERY child. Some children have negligent or abusive adoptive parents, whereas others just do not like the fact that they were separated from their biological parents. We live in the real world here. Ideally, all people having sex would only do so within marriage, but we know that the vast majority of people disagree with us on this. 😦

It’s not just women having sex out of wedlock that’s the problem, though. There are women being unjustly abandoned by their husbands. There are women who finally muster up the courage to leave abusive husbands. There are women and men with high-paying jobs who are struggling to pay off hundreds of thousands of dollars in school loans and other debts. There are couples who were doing fine, but suddenly encounter some kind of emergency like job loss, house fires, natural disasters, unforeseen medical expenses, etc. There are many reasons why parents are struggling to financially provide for their families. Sometimes, it’s due to circumstances beyond their control. I don’t think it’s fair to say that anyone who can’t financially support their children should automatically give up all their children to adoption or foster care. There are also children who still have happy childhoods growing up poor, whereas some rich kids seem to be miserable.

This goes beyond the scope of paid parental leave, though. We need to think of many more types of solutions to help parents struggling financially or emotionally with raising children. Otherwise, we’re not going to live in the “Culture of Life” and “Civilization of Love” that the Church calls us to build. We need to find more ways to ensure that more children will live healthy, happy lives. Only then can we live in a truly pro-life, pro-family society. Most importantly, we need to pray for the end of abortion and for the end of causes of abortion. We also need to pray for the repentance and conversions of all people who are not pro-life and pro-family.
 
Okay, so let’s leave the poor out of it.

The “mommy track” is very real and paid maternity leave will only make it worse. Proving discrimination is a lot harder than you think. It is almost impossible to prove when you don’t lose a job but suddenly never get promoted.

It is not needed, most women can cover their time off with their PTO or disability through their employer. Those who can’t usually can get other assistance through the states and federal programs.

If you really want to help women, push for it outside of employment. After all, why should only the women with jobs get this benefit? Why shouldn’t it exist for all families whether the mom works or not?
 
Like I said, the rest of the world pulls this off.

And plenty of women in the military and working for the Feds get promoted despite the longer maternity leave. And the same arguments were presented. It hasn’t happened.
 
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Why would a woman already living under one income get more money for having a child?

No. Just no. That’s not even logical. Talk about creating an entitlement culture.
 
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If you argument is “the rest of the world does it, why can’t we?” then you don’t have a good argument.
 
That’s my point.

It is an entitlement anyway you slice it. You don’t get special “non-entitlement” fairy dust just beacause you take home a paycheck. If you force the employer to provide paid leave and not use the earned PTO, it is an entitlement.
 
It is if she is pointing out how the rest of the world has much better policies for families in the 21st century than the US
 
It’s not an argument. It’s a question.

Why can’t we? What’s so terrible about it?

People talk all the time about supporting the family, but you say “mandate maternity leave” and oh no - people want something for nothing and oh it would cost too much and oh the strain on businesses and it’s unreasonable and oh my taxes and yet we are the only nation without it.

Why?

I have never had a kid and I am 100% for it. There is zero logic in sending someone back to work right after childbirth. Pregnancy and childbirth are still a leading cause of death and post-birth complications are extremely common, especially post-Caesarian thanks to lousy insurance companies that punt women out after 48 to 72 hours following major surgery.
 
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It’s called the Evangelical Counsels. To which all Catholics are called. My diocese has them on its website. I’d guess other dioceses do too.
Not to mention Jesus didn’t say “blessed are those who seek material comfort and a middle class living.”
 
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How do you know they are better? How do we agree on what “better” is?

The truth is most employers go above and beyond what is required in the laws and I know many women in Europe who are far to afraid to take all of their time off because they know it will hurt their career. So sure, it looks nice on paper but what good is that if you can’t use it?
 
Entitlement may be technically correct but it is a negative perjorative. Social Insurance or Social safety net are better terms. Like social security, medicare.
 
So that is their choice. They’re choosing their career.

And I promise you most employers in the US don’t “go above and beyond”. Not even close.
 
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