Posts tagged ‘Pregnancy’
Expectant Mothers and Workplace Pressures
Last month, The New York Times published a disturbing exposé on the treatment of pregnant employees by Planned Parenthood. The article chronicled the journey of one employee, Ta’Lisa Hairston, whose experiences were particularly harrowing:
As a medical assistant at Planned Parenthood, Ta’Lisa Hairston urged pregnant women to take rest breaks at work, stay hydrated and, please, eat regular meals.
Then she got pregnant and couldn’t follow her own advice.
Last winter, Ms. Hairston told the human-resources department for Planned Parenthood’s clinic in White Plains, N.Y., that her high blood pressure was threatening her pregnancy. She sent the department multiple notes from her nurse recommending that she take frequent breaks.
Managers ignored the notes. They rarely gave her time to rest or to take a lunch break … Ms. Hairston’s hands and feet swelled; the clinic’s plastic gloves no longer fit. Her blood pressure got so high that her doctor put her on bed rest when she was seven months pregnant.
She returned to work on strict orders to not work more than six hours a day and to take regular breaks. One day in March, she worked a much longer shift. She soon became so sick that her doctor told her to go back on bed rest. A few days later, on March 23, she went to the hospital. Doctors performed an emergency C-section. She was 34 weeks pregnant.
When she had been on maternity leave for eight of the 12 weeks guaranteed by the Family and Medical Leave Act, Planned Parenthood’s human resources department called her multiple times and urged her to return to work early, Ms. Hairston said. She emailed the department and said she felt “discriminated against.” She resigned in June.
“I didn’t get into the medical field to be treated like this,” she said.
The last she heard from Planned Parenthood was a letter asking her to donate money. She threw it in the trash.
Sadly, it is not just Planned Parenthood that struggles with treating pregnant employees appropriately. The article cites examples of employees at both Avon and Wal-Mart who have had similarly disturbing experiences.
The very first command God gives to humans is, “Be fruitful and increase in number” (Genesis 1:28). According to Scripture, pregnancy is not a corporate liability, but a great blessing that fulfills one of the callings God has given to humanity.
Part of the problem with Planned Parenthood in particular is that, at the core of their mission, is a very different view of pregnancy than that of the Bible. For Planned Parenthood, pregnancy is not a gift to be stewarded, but a choice to be made. And, in certain cases at least, it seems as though some in Planned Parenthood wish their workers would make a choice of “no.”
I have written many times about the tragedies involved in abortion. Abortion hurts the women who choose them. Abortion destroys the babies who are lost because of them. But this story presents yet another tragedy. Abortion can hurt even those who carry little lives in them and bear little lives from them because they cannot work as long and as hard as their supervisors might want. How inconvenient for the supervisors.
But, then again, perhaps there are things more important than convenience. Perhaps life is more important than convenience. And perhaps, if all this is true, how Planned Parenthood treats its pregnant workers is only the beginning of its problems.
Advocating for Life
Over these past few weeks, lots of big news has been breaking regarding the abortion industry. Perhaps most notably, it was announced a week ago that Cecile Richards, who is the president of Planned Parenthood, has decided to step down from her position. Mrs. Richards’ time at the helm of Planned Parenthood has been marked by scandal, as a series of exposés were published accusing her organization of trafficking fetal parts, and by a total of some 3.5 million abortions.
Also in the news, new research has been published in the controversial Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, which claims to shed light on the emotional pain that many women experience after going through an abortion. If the study’s findings are even close to accurate, they are shocking:
13% reported having visited a psychiatrist, psychologist, or counselor prior to the first pregnancy resulting in an abortion, compared to 67.5% who sought such professional services after their first abortion. Only 6.6% of respondents reported using prescription drugs for psychological health prior to the first pregnancy that ended in abortion, compared with 51% who reported prescription drug use after the first abortion.
Abortion, this study asserts, has deep, lasting, and adverse effects on women’s emotional health.
Digging deeper into the study, some of the individual responses given by women to researchers concerning how their abortions affected them are nothing short of heartbreaking. When asked, “What are the most significant positives, if any, that have come from your decision to abort?” one woman responded:
None, there are no positives. My life is no better, it is much worse. I carry the pain of a child lost forever. Although I know I am forgiven and have worked through the guilt and shame, the heart-wrenching pain is still there. I would rather have been a single mother of two and have my baby here to love and dote on than the pain of empty arms.
Another woman explained:
My child is dead and by my own choice. I spent years of anger, shame, and grief. It damaged my relationship with my husband, my children, and my God. For 30 years I did not speak of it to anyone but my husband. My grief overwhelmed him and left him powerless and ashamed. For years I cried every Sunday in church, experienced dark depressions, thoughts of suicide, and flashes of anger.
Clearly, the abortions these women endured were devastating to their emotional health.
Along with this research, there is also a proposed bill that addresses the care of babies who are born alive in failed abortion attempts. Representative Marsha Blackburn has introduced the “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act,” which requires doctors, if a baby is born alive during an attempted abortion, to provide the same level of care for that child that would be offered to any child born at the same gestational age and to immediately admit that child to a hospital for further care. The House of Representatives has already passed the bill. It now awaits consideration in the Senate.
In all this news, opponents of abortion, among which I count myself, have much on which to reflect. A successful and, I should add, gigantic March for Life in Washington D.C. a few weeks ago demonstrates that the advocates for babies in the womb are both many and organized. Through academic investigation, state and federal legislation, mass demonstration, and, of course, one-on-one conversation, the cause of life marches forward. It marches forward for the babies who have yet to be born, and it marches forward for the women who have been emotionally scarred by their decisions to terminate their pregnancies. Babies in the womb deserve our protection and advocacy. Women who are hurting because of a decision to abort deserve our sympathy and support. The devastation abortion leaves – both in the lives of mothers and the deaths of children – must be revealed for what it is.
As a Christian, I am a firm believer that life is stubborn. It wants to triumph, even over death. This the promise of Easter. And this is what leads to hope for a world without abortion.
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