The New York Times revealed in a bombshell report that Planned Parenthood treats their pregnant employees unfairly to the point of discrimination. This isn’t surprising, given Planned Parenthood’s clear dislike of pregnancy. However, it is still disturbing. It’s also still more proof that while Congress and the White House enjoyed a GOP majority, they should have defunded the behemoth organization that has been receiving taxpayer-funded subsidies despite illegally profiting from the sale of aborted baby parts and now discriminating against its own pregnant employees.
On Thursday, the New York Times published a piece describing complaints anyone paying attention to Planned Parenthood’s company “values” could have predicted. Via interviews with “more than a dozen current and former employees,” the New York Times revealed, despite projecting an image of healthcare and respect for all women, the abortion business has been subject to a dozen lawsuits since 2013. The complaints range from denying pregnant employees rest periods, lunch breaks, and overtime pay to other forms of mistreatment. Even though Planned Parenthood regularly advocates for government-mandated healthcare, they themselves don’t offer paid maternity leave.
Ta’Lisa Hairston, a former medical assistant at Planned Parenthood’s center in White Plains, New York, says while she often told her pregnant employees to take breaks, when she became pregnant, she was unable to take the much-needed breaks herself. Even when Hairston had notes from a nurse saying she needed breaks to handle her high blood pressure — which can be a cause of serious medical problems for pregnant women — human resources ignored them.
“I had to hold back tears talking to pregnant women, telling them to take care of their pregnancies when I couldn’t take care of mine,” she said. “It made me jealous.” Hairston was forced to work so much she eventually succumbed to bed rest at seven months and had to deliver her baby via emergency C-section at 34 weeks. The New York Times reports: “In other cases, the bias was more subtle. Many women said they were afraid to announce a pregnancy at work, sensing they would be seen as abandoning their colleagues.”
Planned Parenthood’s president, Dr. Leana Wen, has already responded to the report: “I believe we must do better than we are now. It’s our obligation to do better, for our staff, for their families and for our patients.”
Unfortunately, the report revealed workplace discrimination of pregnant women does not only take place at Planned Parenthood, where one might expect. Other companies, which also advocate for women in their public relations efforts, are facing lawsuits women filed because they say they too were discriminated while pregnant. The story included several lawsuits attorneys filed against their own law firm, accusing the founding partner of discrimination while they were pregnant. (Ironically, the firm represents several suits against Walmart for pregnancy discrimination.)
The piece also mentions Avon, the makeup company: “At Avon, which calls itself ‘the company for women,’ two employees in a cosmetics-testing lab have sued for being forced to handle toxic chemicals while pregnant. A marketing executive, Caroline Ruiz, also said she was fired four days after announcing her pregnancy.”
The report reveals two important things at odds in society right now: First, the reality of how difficult it is for women to follow through with a progressive, feminist agenda which says women can work, have babies, and resume life like neither are in conflict. Both are still hard, and no matter how many waves of feminism American society observes, it may always be hard because these two ideas are simply difficult to achieve seamlessly. Second, it reveals that even the most progressive of feminist, flag-waving companies like Planned Parenthood, are often hypocrites.
While it was disturbing to see just how many pro-woman companies mistreat their own female employees as a result of being pregnant, the only organization in this story taxpayers fund — and quite robustly — is Planned Parenthood. It offers still more proof, as if we needed any, that the GOP should have defunded the organization when it had the chance. Unfortunately, it simply was not a priority. That is a grievous mistake for the women who work there, as well as the thousands of babies aborted every year.
