Said Ginny Andersen, the New Zealand legislator who drafted the bill discussed in "New Zealand Approves Paid Leave After Miscarriage/The measure, believed to be among the first in the world, would apply to couples who lose a pregnancy at any point" (NYT).
Ms. Andersen added that she had not been able to find comparable legislation anywhere in the world. “We may well be the first country,” she said, adding, “But all the countries that New Zealand is usually compared to legislate for the 20-week mark.”
The new law does not apply to abortions, Ms. Andersen added. New Zealand decriminalized abortion last year, ending the country’s status as one of the few wealthy nations to limit the grounds for ending a pregnancy in the first half.
Is New Zealand in the vanguard — or is this another manifestation of a culture that outlawed abortion until only last year? The bill highlights the importance and reality of the child that was lost, even though it never reached the age where it could have survived outside the womb. This is the stage of development where, in America, the woman has a right to end the pregnancy and the state cannot intervene to save the life of the child.
Now, New Zealand has created a benefit that officially cares for parents who experience the early end to a pregnancy, but it excludes the parents/mothers who chose to end the pregnancy. The gesture of exclusion of the aborters means something, doesn't it? But what does it mean?
- We don't think you have any grief that you need 3 days to get over.
- Don't ask us to help you with this particular pain, which you chose.
- By aborting, you declared that what was in you was not a human being, so, within your own concept of of the universe, there was no death to grieve.
- We want you to feel bad about aborting.
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The bill highlights the importance and reality of the child that was lost, even though it never reached the age where it could have survived outside the womb. This is the stage of development where, in America, the woman has a right to end the pregnancy and the state cannot intervene to save the life of the child.
????
Where in the United States have the courts permitted a state to intervene to save the life of the child at any point, including the seconds leading up to birth? Several states have introduced laws allowing post natal abortion!
Abortion is murder. If you murder somebody, does your job give you time off??
:Now, New Zealand has created a benefit that officially cares for parents who experience the early end to a pregnancy, but it excludes the parents/mothers who chose to end the pregnancy. The gesture of exclusion of the aborters means something, doesn't it? But what does it mean?
No woman must be made to feel bad about, or responsible for, anything, ever.
---The gesture of exclusion of the aborters. [AA]
Gesture? It is a key point of the law. And you supply all sound reasons.
I hate when Amn reminds us that she is just another liberal woman.
“-We don't think you have any grief that you need 3 days to get over.
- Don't ask us to help you with this particular pain, which you chose.
- By aborting, you declared that what was in you was not a human being, so, within your own concept of the universe, there was no death to grieve.
- We want you to feel bad about aborting.”
All of the above?
What benefits or protections does this new law create, and at whose expense? Politicians are addicted to the rush that comes from spending other people’s money. How much OPM will this cost?
A soul implies social relations to others. The fetus has a soul if the parents have plans for it, set up a nursery, etc. Otherwise not.
So it's in line with how the words are actually used when not dogmatized on one side or the other.
Compare the common complaint, "He has no soul." It's about social relations.
So, when a few days off are at stake the old "Keep your laws off my body" bit gets tossed aside. Nice try Ann.
Who would want to tell HR that they need abortion time off?
And so would pro-life people not be able to work in HR anymore?
You’re asking your co-workers to get pretty involved in your life.
Why wouldn’t miscarriage just be included in sick-leave?
Miscarriage is included in sick leave. This must be 3 additional days available to women along the lines of bereavement time off. Time off for an abortion is also included in sick leave. I'm guessing the issue is whether a women who terminates a pregnancy voluntarily gets to have paid time off to grieve.
Gee, why would a culture that wishes to sustain itself disfavor the extinguishing of developing human lives?
So.... an early fetus is a lump of tissue - not a person, legally or morally, but it's also "a child" who one could grieve for? You see, it's completely subjective, based solely on the wishes of the pregnant woman - excuse me - "person with a uterus". The new morality = whatever you want to be true is true.
"But what does it mean?"
All of the above.
Politicians are addicted to the rush that comes from spending other people’s money. How much OPM will this cost?
We need to cut today's politicians some slack. It isn't as easy as it once was to impress your constituents with just another new entitlement. Today's constituent needs to be made to feel exceptional, that they are all above average. To buy votes nowadays you need to be creative...
...next comes the bill to take away your house and give it to someone special.
Given the facts as presented, I’m absolutely fine with drawing a Big Bright Line between “grief from miscarriage” and “choosing to end a pregnancy”.
Maybe those fucking geniuses at Planned Parenthood, who are in the business of terminating lives, should do a better job of coaching pregnant women — and often, underage girls — about potential grief and moral dilemmas and the costs of living with one’s choices.
Some things you think about every day for the rest of your life ... and that’s eternity, for you, essentially.
There’s no form of prison quite like existential regret.
They grant their three days to amplify their political self-importance. As if their three days can fill that kind of void.
Nothing to see here. The cat wants attention. That said, NZ is an interesting hothouse to study. We can see a possible future there we need to heed.
Who pays for this if it is not already covered in a company's sick leave / personal time benefits? Does a man get it when his partner suffers it?
Start your own friggin' company and offer said benefit.
THEOLDMAN
"The new law, which had been in development for several years, …"
They spent several years on a law which gives a 3-day leave? They get paid for this?
Just pass the law and get on with it.
So.... an early fetus is a lump of tissue - not a person, legally or morally, but it's also "a child" who one could grieve for? You see, it's completely subjective, based solely on the wishes of the pregnant woman - excuse me - "person with a uterus". The new morality = whatever you want to be true is true.
Right, but it actually is "subjective." It isn't that what you want to be true is true, but that the words you live with make it true. It's a social organizing of life.
Withdrawing from the social organizing of life is dogmatizing. Your picture, say souls lined up and being placed into fertilized ova by God one by one as they come along, becomes your model, and words be damned.
Or that it's just a lump of tissue, on the other side. Parents that wanted a child see that much differently. It's the "just" that's the problem.
There's a social situation around it that says what's going on.
The compromise both sides would accept for the moment is that it's a human in embryo. A potential and a qualification.
Miscarriage is this big secret that lots of people walk around with, and it’s a pretty big burden. My wife had one with our first pregnancy, very early, and it was very traumatic for her. She had already told everyone she was pregnant — then she understood why lots of women wait much longer to do that part.
One thing we both took away from the whole experience, the only good thing about it really, was newfound appreciation of the wonder of life. From one cell you get all this miraculous mysterious activity going on, and it forms hearts and feet and legs and brains and all these different internal organs and eventually a little person?! What?!?!
How does that *ever* work?
Forgot to mention, over the years she found out nearly every woman she talked to about miscarriage has a story, sometimes multiples.
The actual political rule is that it's protected once in some way it's shown to be cute.
The actual eventual rule will be no abortions, but to prevent population collapse.
it seems like it should apply MORE to women that had an abortion!
Not only do they suffer the Loss of a child... They suffer the MURDER of a child
You know? Like the way the Mendez brothers had to suffer the pain of being orphaned?
While both miscarriages and abortions are sad events to be grieved, I don’t think businesses should have to pay for the additional time off. There are other events that cause people to choose to take a mental health day or days, all under the sick day umbrella.
I think the general bereavement period of three days for employees whose relatives have passed away are for grieving, but also the funeral, burial and other associated gatherings or ceremonies.
Seriously,
a woman that has an abortion has to endure the vicious premeditated Murder of her child
Shouldn't we all get behind her and commiserate? (or, is that Celebrate? i get so confused)
"Where in the United States have the courts permitted a state to intervene to save the life of the child at any point, including the seconds leading up to birth? Several states have introduced laws allowing post natal abortion!"
Under Planned Parenthood v. Casey, government may intervene after the viability point and even ban abortion -- as long as there is still protection for the life and health of the mother.
"Miscarriage is included in sick leave. This must be 3 additional days available to women along the lines of bereavement time off. Time off for an abortion is also included in sick leave. I'm guessing the issue is whether a women who terminates a pregnancy voluntarily gets to have paid time off to grieve."
You're forgetting the father.
Isn't this exactly the policy that we should want? It supports a culture of life, women, families. It doesn't ban abortion but it doesn't reward it either. Isn't this our sustainable future?
Rather than contrast a miscarriage with an abortion, aside from the obvious political postruring, how and why is a miscarriage different than the death* of any other child? Do Nude Zealander's get paid to grieve in that case?
*death = a word missing from the article.
Women probably shouldn't be allowed to work.
or vote.
If mothers get to decide when their children become human, what is the justification for ending it at birth or at heartbeat? Why not at object permanence? Or when they're old enough to get a job and pay rent? The only point at which there is an actual objective reason to say "this is the place" is the moment of conception. But only nutters argue for that.
A soul implies social relations to others. The fetus has a soul if the parents have plans for it, set up a nursery, etc. Otherwise not.
Human beings are not in charge of souls, rhhardin.
rhhardin said...The actual political rule is that it's protected once in some way it's shown to be cute.
That's the animal rights rule too. It covers a lot of bases.
Human beings are not in charge of souls, rhhardin.
They're in charge of words. Soul goes where it goes. If you make it go somewhere else, say to dogmatism, you find resistance.
Look at hostile work environment There's no agreement there, the left dogmatizing hostile against what you might call common sense.
Hostile means men.
I know a few women who had late trimester miscarriages. It was devastating, physically and mentally. The Eastern Orthodox have funerals, I seem to remember some Ukrainian neighbors had a funeral after a miscarriage.
That is different from the father who won’t be a father. Again, what sort of person would go to HR and say, hey, my girlfriend’s having an abortion, so I need to take leave time to grieve? That’s legislating some serious cultural dissonance, if they were actually doing it.
If mothers get to decide when their children become human, what is the justification for ending it at birth or at heartbeat?
It's not mothers, it's the words. There's already agreement about the words, plus attempts to move the words somewhere else.
As for being human, you learn to be human. It's socialization. We agree to treat a born child as a human. Spend a lot of time say-foring so that he picks up what the rules are. Treating him as a human is how he learns to be human.
Otherwise it goes Lord of the Flies.
@Althouse, you have to go all the way to New Zealand to find something over which to get into a dudgeon? And then it’s whether women who voluntarily terminate their pregnancy ought to be treated the same as women who lost their baby and mourn their loss? We also treat children who murder their parents differently from children whose parents die of natural causes.
I wonder why official people are always acting to give women confidence.
Probably also a feminine hygiene product.
We want you to feel bad about aborting.
They're acknowledging that people feel bad after the death of a child.
Anything that recognizes the humanity of unborn children makes people feel bad about abortion.
Being pregnant and happy makes people feel bad about abortion.
Being happy about the birth of your child makes people feel bad about abortion.
Pushing babies in the park makes people feel bad about abortion.
Instead of trying to protect all the people who might feel bad about their abortion, we should warn people to avoid future abortions.
In sex education class, we should educate children about the creation of a baby. The documentary In the Womb should be a part of every sex education class. Will that cause people who have had abortions to feel bad? Probably. But you educate people anyway.
Blogger gilbar said...
"it seems like it should apply MORE to women that had an abortion!
Not only do they suffer the Loss of a child... They suffer the MURDER of a child
You know? Like the way the Mendez brothers had to suffer the pain of being orphaned?"
My new law would allow abortion up to and including the 24th trimester.
"Why did you abort little suzie?"
"She had a mouth on her.... But the good new is little bobby is now a model son. Though he has developed a pretty severe tic."
I'm call this a win.
They're in charge of words.
The idea that pregnancy is just an idea is one of the more stupid things that have been said on this blog. It's straight out of Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.
Nobody is allowed to stab or poison people because we have our own individual "concept of existence" and that takes precedence over an individual's right to life. Kennedy (or whichever anonymous jackass wrote those words) is talking about abortion like it's a 1st Amendment issue.
Of course we all have the right to speak about existence, meaning, the universe, and the mystery of human life -- any way we please. But we have no right to act on our beliefs and start stabbing or poisoning people that we exclude from our concept of humanity.
This is a mistake that smart and highly educated people make -- they are in their own heads and oblivious to reality. The Casey Court was utterly oblivious to the reality of abortion. (Which is why the Carhart opinions are so shocking, as they are graphic and fact-based). The Supreme Court's abortion case law alternates from high flights of ideology and nice words to graphic fact patterns of dead babies left in hotel bathrooms, or a pile of corpses that are starting to stink. It's not surprising that the pro-abortion media wants to focus on the former and ignore the latter.
Smart people who prefer narrative to factual reality are dangerous.
"We also treat children who murder their parents differently from children whose parents die of natural causes."
Apt analogy.
I won't comment on Kiwi law. On another blog and a different comment section; a Kiwi would regularly enter discussion on US politics and try to tell us how the US should be based on his understanding watching media. It was sad watching someone opine from a position of so much ignorance.
As for family medical leave; I'll admit, I've been beaten down. I'd trade 4 weeks, every other year, of FMLA to avoid national lockdowns. Alas, I'm not so beaten as to realize that Democrats would want both.
"The bill highlights the importance and reality of the child that was lost"
Child? What child?
false equivalance - meaning
Insincere drawing of equivalance to a previous position for appearances.
example:
Referring a "clump of cells" as a "child".
rhhardin said...
I wonder why official people are always acting to give women confidence.
Same here. When I was younger I had a serious lack of self confidence, no one every pass any laws to help me. All I got was a lot of bitchy women telling me to "man up", like they actually knew something about it.
This is a good law for pro-life parents.
Pro-choice parents think it's just a clump of cells, so no leave for them.
Don't ask us to help you with this particular pain, which you chose.
By aborting, you declared that what was in you was not a human being, so, within your own concept of of the universe, there was no death to grieve.
Both are entirely correct. It would take a Leftist 9which is to say, a person utterly lacking in morals, principles, and shame) to argue with either.
I truly believe that a mother-to-be (and for that matter, a father-to-be) that are looking forward to having a child could grieve strongly after a miscarriage, and should be considered eligible for a short break from work without impacting their job security. Whether or not that break should be 'paid' is any entirely different question.
On the other hand, what could go wrong with this new law?
Employee: I sure need a couple of days off next month when my friend comes to town, but I really don't want to suffer loss of income... I think the company should pay me regardless. Hey - what if I hint to co-workers now that I'm (or my wife is) pregnant and then next month tell them I (she) had a miscarriage?
"Where in the United States have the courts permitted a state to intervene to save the life of the child at any point, including the seconds leading up to birth? Several states have introduced laws allowing post natal abortion!"
Under Planned Parenthood v. Casey, government may intervene after the viability point and even ban abortion -- as long as there is still protection for the life and health of the mother.
Great. No provide an example of the courts upholding such a law.
Everyone knows the health of the mother depends upon killing her baby up to, and perhaps beyond, birth.
I thought abortions were supposed to make women happy! Isn't that why there's a "Shout Your Abortion" movement? Isn't that why Planned Parenthood is always telling us that 99 percent of women who have abortions feel nothing but relief? What--that's not true?
Isn't claiming you're entitled to "grief leave" after you abort your baby exactly the case of the man who murders his parents and then begs the court for mercy because he's an orphan?
Where's our poll???
More crabs pulling each other back into the pot. Billionaires livelihood depend on this reflexive behavior.
The difference between a miscarriage and an abortion is that one was wanted, the other was not.
Ann, surely you can't be this naive about abortion law. The fact is, the exception swallows the rule. Because every law restricting abortion must have the "health of the mother" exception--and "health" encompasses vague mental pain from having to carry a child to term--abortion is de facto legal up until the baby exits the birth canal.
I suffered an early miscarriage (8 weeks). While I was not devastated, I did grieve deeply. I was unprepared for how quickly--instantaneously--I became committed to the reality that I would be a mother (and my husband felt the same). I know women who have miscarried late in pregnancy (22 weeks or so) and have had to carry the dead child to term (medical reasons I don't fully understand). That seems to me like it would be a world-shattering experience.
Some time ago, didn't a group of pro-abortion women demand a law prohibiting anyone from trying to guilt trip a woman who elected to have an abortion?
"You're forgetting the father."
Yeah, that's fairly common these days, forgetting the father. Maybe the father should get three days to grieve the murder of his child by its mother? And she can have three days to celebrate her empowerment. She's fucking double-oh-seven! License to kill, Baby! Or at least, license to kill baby.
If you choose to have an abortion, what are you grieving for? Your own lack of humanity?
@rhhardin,
They're in charge of words. Soul goes where it goes. If you make it go somewhere else, say to dogmatism, you find resistance.
Stop pulling morsels of Wittgenstein out of your ass and pretending that they constitute a moral philosophy. They don't.
You know who put together a moral philosophy out of Wittgenstein? G.E.M. Anscombe. Do you know what she was? A morally Conservative Catholic.
It is fully in line with your persona that you think that you can out Wittgenstein Anscombe, much like the rabid Catholic who think he out-Catholics the Pope.
I do recall, the wife of a friend of mine, and mother of his delightful daughter, who had a fairly prestigious and demanding newspaper job, confiding in me that she had recently had an abortion because it was not a good point in her career to have a baby. She was clearly despondent about the matter. I'm afraid I didn't help. I was too horrified to be much comfort.
She quit the job a while back, I'm not sure what she's doing now. I think he's dead.
Netflix has a limited documentary series called "Unnatural Selection."
One of the storylines is a fertility clinic in Ukraine that does IVF using three parents: the Mom, the Dad and a woman who donated healthy mitochondria to replace Mom's defective cells. It's illegal in the US. Once the IVF is done, the doc shows the parents a clump of cells and says there is your boy.
It's a great series I am sure you people will like it. They slam environmental activists who fight against using crisper to eradicate malaria in Africa. They also showcase garage bioengineering. They also go after big pharma price gouging that might put that topic in a different light.
Howard said...
More crabs pulling each other back into the pot. Billionaires livelihood depend on this reflexive behavior.
So, why do you keep on doing it, Howard?
The grief over miscarriage of a wanted baby is real. It certainly was for my wife and myself. I'm not certain that any number of "days off" can or will cure the grief. For young couples you suck it up and start again. Easy to say when all this happened more than 50 years ago for the two of us. That said, the grief still lingers even though subsequent pregnancies were successful.
These days with women waiting into their late 30s and early 40s to have their first child--using IVF and other technologies I think that the grief might be devastating.
How about including this under FMLA (in the US), for both men and women?
Of the four choices any of the first three are apt. The fourth not so much.
Beyond any moral questions, it is just about politicians buying votes with taxpayer dollars. The possibilities are endless, even in New Zealand which hasn’t much money. For example, if La Señora and I wish to return to NZ, because we are citizens (dual with US), the government will pay for our Covid quarantine. No demonstration of hardship is necessary.
Was it Her Choice or her Choice? For the latter, was it with cause, or to relieve a "burden", for social progress: a life deemed unworthy of life?
Does NYT have standing to present an apology? Can members of Progressive sects with a Pro-Choice religion abort the baby, cannibalize her profitable parts, sequester her carbon pollutants, and have her, too? Gender conversion therapy, etc.
Planned Parent/hood is a progressive path and grade.
The grief over miscarriage of a wanted baby is real.
Yes, Her Choice. Also, a pregnancy that threatens the life (i.e. self-defense) of the mother, requires a hard and likely unavoidable Choice. Women at the Twilight Fringe (i.e. Pro-Choice including avoidance) do not qualify for either exception to human rights, which is why n-generation feminists, their Progressive advocates, tried legal (i.e. moral philosophy's politically congruent cousin) legerdemain accompanied by the traditional em-pathetic appeals to claim a rape... rape-rape culture, including witch hunts, warlock judgments, and protests. The very faith, religion, and ideological bent adopted by their CCP patrons to replace their poorly conceived one-child policy.
Planned Parent/hood (e.g. selective-child, cannibalized-child) is a wicked solution, which has acquired normalization with the progress of queer relationships between men and women, and single women with regrets. Does NYT, with a legacy of conflicts of interest, have standing to report on this human rights issue? Does anyone from the Progressive Church/Synagogue/Corporation/Clinic/Chamber etc.? One step forward, two steps backward.
They cannot settle cognitive dissonance through adoption of the Pro-Choice religion, social liberalism has diverged beyond tolerance, and the politically congruent construct to socially justify selective-child (per chance cannibalized-child) is no longer a viable choice. The tell-tale hearts beat ever louder at Planned Parent/hood.
"New Zealand Approves Paid Leave After Miscarriage/The measure, believed to be among the first in the world, would apply to couples who lose a pregnancy at any point"
Not the first.
The District of Columbia passed a miscarriage leave bill a few weeks ago.
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