Hasnain says:

“But withholding paid leave from new parents can be lethal. The United States has one of the highest maternal death rates among developed countries. More than half of those maternal deaths occur after the birth. Only 17 percent occur on the day of delivery.

The death rates are higher for women living in poverty, and for Black women (who are three times as likely as white women to die from pregnancy-related complications). Adequate paid parental leave creates a life-or-death divide along racial and class lines. Survival after giving birth should not be a luxury afforded to wealthy white women.

A country with enough money to give a single billionaire a $2.9 billion lunar lander contract can afford to let women recover from the highly inconvenient task of perpetuating humanity. But we don’t. Because when it comes to an empathic or medically coherent understanding of childbirth, some of the people creating the budget proposal have the priorities of a Bond villain.”

Posted on 2021-11-14T18:47:59+0000