Bereavement leave for miscarriages proposed

Not surprised to see New Zealand becoming more breeder friendly, as their PM is being lauded for having a baby while in office. Earlier I mentioned the domestic violence leave, which I had mixed feelings about because I'm not sure who will wind up being responsible. But at least that potentially applied to everyone. Now New Zealand is proposing miscarriage leave.

This proposal isn't about sick leave if a person is unable to work due to a miscarriage. Outside of the US, it's pretty standard in developed countries for sick days not to be rationed but to be available as needed, regardless of the cause of the illness. No, this proposal is to give both woman who miscarried and her partner three days of bereavement leave:

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The Labour MP Ginny Andersen, who sponsored the bill, said miscarriage was still a “taboo subject” in New Zealand and paid leave to grieve for the loss of a baby – at any stage of the pregnancy – would bring the subject into the open.

Which of course is going to open some floodgates...

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The ministry of health describes miscarriages as “fairly common” and says one or two out of every 10 pregnant women will miscarry a baby.

Exactly. And those are just the ones who realize they are pregnant. The law will require a "confirmed pregnancy" - no mention of how it would have to be confirmed - and after that a miscarriage at any stage would qualify for bereavement leave.

One wonders if the citizens of New Zealand are going to be obligated to show up for work more than 10 days a year at the rate the government is proposing leave. (And I say this as someone who thinks the US system goes too far against employee's personal lives - New Zealand is going too far in the other direction.) Well, if they're breeders, that is. I guess the CF will still have to work.

I knew it. Something like this was on tv about "people just don't realize" how crushing it is to lose that 2 month wanted clump, so everyone should bend over backwards and realize the pain and give them whatever they ask for.

At first reading it is nice that it applies for both men and women, so it won't be one of the zillion reasons which make it more profitable to hire a man over a woman. I'm sick of the whole "we can't ask at job interviews whether you want to get pregnant soon so we'll just assume you will".

At second reading I'm sure that it'll be mostly women who will take this leave as it is socially more acceptable for them to cry over miscarriage, so basically it will soon become one of those zillion reasons...

I don't know about the laws in New Zealand, but in most countries people have several days of paid vacation in a year, I suppose New Zealanders have them too, what about using those days for whatever the fuck they want, and not crying for extra days? I get it, miscarriage is painful, but a breakup is painful, a divorce is painful, losing a cat you had for 10 years is painful, hell, even having your phone stolen is painful...

Oh. I can totally see this being abused. Moos and wanna-moos bitching and whining, asking for leave from work because of a late period.

They're gonna regret this in a hurry once they have to start dealing with serial miscarriages. You know who I mean, the women who can't ever take a hint: they have four miscarriages in a single year and keep right on getting pregnant immediately after each one, then act genuinely shocked and heartbroken when the newest pregnancy bleeds out.

And they're treading thin ice with the "confirmed pregnancy" thing because I'm sure women will argue that they took a home test that was positive and threw it away, or that they "just knew" they were pregnant and how dare you question her maternal instinct when she's suffering! Could it be used for abortion too? A miscarriage and an abortion are sort of similar - it's just that one is intentional, but employers don't need to know that. Do they plan to administer pregnancy tests in the workplace to find out if the woman was actually pregnant? I can't imagine that would go over well, but I'd love to know how they plan on confirming pregnancies before offering miscarriage leave.

If you have to take a few days off to mourn your dead clump, then just do that. You don't need special fucking leave for it. Unless they're complete assholes, I think most employers would be understanding. Sounds like just another way to give breeders and wannabreeders even more unnecessary attention and privileges, because you KNOW they're going to shout from the rooftops that they're going on leave for miscarrying.

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Cambion
They're gonna regret this in a hurry once they have to start dealing with serial miscarriages. You know who I mean, the women who can't ever take a hint: they have four miscarriages in a single year and keep right on getting pregnant immediately after each one, then act genuinely shocked and heartbroken when the newest pregnancy bleeds out.

I wonder what they'll think when a workshy scumbag takes to impregnating multiple women and then punching them into miscarriages. Because while a woman can have serial miscarriages at a rate of several a year, a man can easily rack up more than that, if multiple women are involved.

Then the women can get domestic violence leave and everybody wins! (Except the people who have to pick up the slack.)

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tea princess
I don't know about the laws in New Zealand, but in most countries people have several days of paid vacation in a year, I suppose New Zealanders have them too, what about using those days for whatever the fuck they want, and not crying for extra days? I get it, miscarriage is painful, but a breakup is painful, a divorce is painful, losing a cat you had for 10 years is painful, hell, even having your phone stolen is painful...

Well, if they want to be fair, everyone should get bereavement time anytime anything bad happens. But in reality, people have to get on with things, and if they really can't handle it they use some vacation time or have a medically-sanctioned collapse. I don't see any point in hyping up the loss of an idealized dream, which is basically what a miscarriage is. It's not on par with when someone who is living and breathing is lost to you. It's like figuring out that you're never going to be a professional ballerina. If you need days off for mourning, you should probably seek counseling.

I had a co-worker who took bereavement leave for a miscarriage. I worked for the county and all employees were entitled to a few days of bereavement leave if somebody in their immediate family died. It was either 3 or 5 days, I don't remember.

His wife went for her first trimester ultrasound and found out the clump was severely abnormal, so they had to terminate. That qualified as a miscarriage and a miscarriage was considered the loss of a child. I always wondered why the pro-liars didn't scream about that. This co-worker was always taking time off for brat related shit. Right before I left he was promoted to supervisor. I went on disability for a chronic illness. The higher ups were giving me a ton of shit for being sick. Before I got sick I hardly ever missed any work days.

Yup, breeders rule the world. Get me off this planet.

How will they prove a miscarriage?

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quiltergirl
How will they prove a miscarriage?

As opposed to an abortion...

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quiltergirl
How will they prove a miscarriage?

I wonder about that too. Would they need a doctor's note? Not all women go to the hospital when they miscarry. What if they just do that thing where they think they're pregnant but are actually just late, then decide they've miscarried when they get their period two weeks later than expected? Plus I imagine some women who miscarry would be too distraught to run right to the hospital and would forget to ask for a note in order to get miscarriage leave, but then they'd shriek about not being allowed to have it without proof of miscarriage.

I also wonder what would happen if someone who didn't want to be pregnant had a miscarriage. Would they be allowed to take the same leave when their pregnancy wasn't wanted versus a woman who did want to be pregnant? I bet there'd be backlash from breeders about a CF or CL woman taking miscarriage leave because she's not mourning.

This just has trouble written all over it. Women are gonna exploit the hell out of this and the employees who aren't assholes are going to be the ones picking up the slack.

As someone else mentioned, some women have more than one miscarriage a year. This law could absolutely wreck the New Zealand economy. Ah but we know the solution - have the childfree tighten their belts and pick the slack, so people too stupid and uncreative to do anything with their lives other than breed can retain their ability to make as many xerox copies of themselves as they choose. On our dime.

@ Childfreeadvocate

^ This! I hate how all of the work is pushed on CF people, and how breeders are catered to. When I first started my current job, everybody was getting OT. It wasn’t unusual for me to have 16-19 hours of overtime. Now, everybody is at 40 hours. For the last 3 months I’ve been stuck on the bad shifts {6p-6a, 10p-6a} twice a week. It wouldn’t be that bad if I had all overnights, because I’d get used to it. But as it is I have my two overnights and then two days off. My days off get wasted because I spend all day asleep. I can’t say anything though because “people are getting what’s available,” and I don’t want my hours cut. Today I overheard one of the office moos ask the manager for more hours because “bratleigh is starting school now so I can pick up more hours,” and the manager agreed. Wtf? We are already all at 40. Whose hours is she going to cut to accommodate moo? Honestly, it pisses me off that work, something universally understood to not be all about you, still caters to breeders.

And the whole idea of miscarriage leave is nonsense. The less scrupulous are going to milk the f out of this. What counts as a miscarriage? A month late? More? What about LGBTQ people? If they miss a period, do they get leave too? {I know LGBTQ people don’t get pregnant, unless they do surrogate parents or IVF or whatever, but the point is, if late periods qualify, then this is really unfair to LGBTQ people}. Also, I know everyone here knows this, but I’m still going to say it. You can’t mourn the loss of something you’ve never had. Working yourself into an emotional frenzy over PERCIEVED loss is stupid. Oh, woah is me. I ‘lost’ my Maserati, my Hummer, and my Tesla. Can I get a bereavement leave? That’s quite the collection I lost there. /sarcasm

Lock him up or put him down.
Stolen from Shiny.

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contemplativeintrovert
And the whole idea of miscarriage leave is nonsense. The less scrupulous are going to milk the f out of this. What counts as a miscarriage? A month late? More?

The only thing the CF are going to get out of it is the chance to reread some "angel clump/clot" threads, including the classic angel eggs thread.

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contemplativeintrovert
@ Childfreeadvocate

^ This! I hate how all of the work is pushed on CF people, and how breeders are catered to.

The human race is honest enough to admit that giving one group of people more pay and benefits than another group doing the same job, based on gender, is sexism.

We're also honest enough to admit that giving one group of people extra pay and benefits compared to another group to do the same job, based on race, is racism.

But despite us adding a BLLION people to the planet every TEN YEARS....it's somehow "moral" to continue stealing more and more money away and benefits from the childfree, in order to hand them over to breeders, for no reason. It's discrimination, plain and simple, and it's wrong.