Op-Ed: Abby Johnson: Funding Full Maternity Leave Is a Pro-Life Position, and More Companies Should Do It
Some of the most hypocritical rhetoric about women’s rights comes from organizations and nonprofits that base their entire marketing around the lie that they support women. One of the things working women need most is…
Some of the most hypocritical rhetoric about women’s rights comes from organizations and nonprofits that base their entire marketing around the lie that they support women. One of the things working women need most is paid maternity leave, and hardly any companies, liberal or conservative, are offering that.
Planned Parenthood, where I worked for eight years and where almost a third of all abortions in our nation are done, was called out by The New York Times in 2018 for pregnancy discrimination against employees and its lack of paid parental leave.
When I became pregnant while working at Planned Parenthood, my supervisor told me I could get it “taken care of” because a baby could have a negative effect on my job performance.
This isn’t surprising given that the organization makes money directly off of women who are facing a lack of paid leave from their jobs. Yet Planned Parenthood’s mantra is always about helping women. If that is true, then they would be offering the best paid maternity leave policy to their employees. They don’t.
I run a small nonprofit that helps get abortion workers out of the industry to find new, life-affirming jobs. I also offer my employees a full 12 weeks of paid parental leave when they have a baby or adopt. They also have paid leave if they have a miscarriage.
Creating and implementing this policy was at the top of my priorities when I started my ministry because I wanted to show that I care deeply about the people who work for me, that I value them as human beings, that I know they need that time to bond with their baby or grieve a loss and will come back rested and ready to get back to our life-saving work.
It’s no secret I am a pro-life, conservative woman, mother and wife. This really shouldn’t matter in the debate over paid parental leave, but it does. I am choosing to put my beliefs into action in a concrete and tangible way. I support women and want the best for them, which translates to taking care of a crucial need for them when they have a baby.
Every single company, organization and nonprofit that claims to care about women or promote traditional family values or that is pro-life needs to be an example to the world and have a generous paid family leave policy in place for their employees.