Posted on 08/14/2008 12:37:20 PM PDT by flowerplough
For women struggling with infertility, the unpredictable and time-consuming treatment process can wreak havoc with work schedules, causing conflicts with bosses and triggering reprisals or layoffs. Now, a federal appeals court has come down on the side of women, fortifying legal protections on the job.
In the first decision of its kind at the federal appeals-court level, a three-judge panel in Chicago found women who need time off work for infertility treatment may invoke the Pregnancy Discrimination Act as potential protection against adverse action. The ruling came in a case involving Cheryl Hall, a secretary who was laid off after taking time off for in vitro fertilization, then asking for more. Without ruling on the merits of her case, the court last month set a precedent by giving Ms. Hall a green light to sue her former employer for pregnancy-related bias.
The erratic nature of infertility treatment can be frustrating for employers, interfering with planning, meetings and business travel. Some procedures require women to report to a clinic several days each month for blood tests or sonograms. Retrieving eggs from a woman's uterus is usually done with a general anesthetic, requiring recovery time. Some doctors order bed rest after embryos are transferred to the uterus. Women who have long commutes to work or a clinic, as Ms. Hall did, may need extended time off.
( ... )
Courts in other cases have held that because both men and women experience infertility, sex-bias protections don't apply. In this case, the court held that because only women undergo time-consuming in vitro fertilization, they may be protected by sex-bias law. Treatment for men usually takes less time.
The ruling suggests women will have to worry less about the "repercussions of taking time off for IVF," says Eugene Hollander, Ms. Hall's attorney.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I work shifts in a medium-sized factory owned by a huge, multi-global corporation. We treat the pregnant ladies pretty well, I think, switching 'em to straight day work, letting 'em out 3 months or more before the birth, and holding the job for up to 9 months after the birth. And it's usually useless. Many (most?) of the moms come back to the rotating-shift job we've been scrambling to hold for 'em and decide, after a few weeks, that Baby's more important than they thought.
And as they skip on out the door, thanking us for giving them so much time to decide not to come back to work, we go looking for another woman to hire to keep up with our idiotic women/minority quota/goals.
Then, if you ignore a lot of variables,
you can bitch about “75 cents on the dollar”,
and sue companies, have legislation enacted, etc.
If you trust God’s word, it’s pretty obvious that men and women were created for certain roles, and when you try to buck those roles, your life is unnecessarily hard.
On another note - why not just adopt some baby born to some “knocked up in the backseat at 16” teenager?
It’s far more important to pass on your values than your genes.
This is something leftists figured out long ago - let the conservatives breed & pay for kids, and leftists will just indoctrinate them in the public school system.
I don’t know what to think here... I can see being infertile as being a true, genuine, bona fide disability for a woman.
What about husbands?
Do we get time off for “nooners”?
I was thinking the exact same thing.
My urologist told me years ago I had a low sperm count. Who fills in the papers so I can get a handicapped parking spot?
Curious - how is this a disability? It doesn't affect their ability to earn a living in any way.
I don't see infertility as "something to overcome" as much as an indicator that you need to choose a different path - adoption.
Probably because the waiting lists for those babys extend for years.
Most “knocked up in the backseat at 16” teenagers shred or keep their babies.
“Think I’ll go home and see what the wife is doing”. - Ernie the Cab Driver in It’s a Wonderful Life
In the middle of the day after seeing Violet Bic....woo-woo
If society wasn't still deluded with feminism, maybe women wouldn't feel the need to work at a demanding job for a short time before skipping out when a baby comes along.
Full disclosure... I'm a dad-to-be expecting his first child, so perhaps my perspective is skewed. While being infertile indeed doesn't affect a woman's earning power, it does prevent a woman from doing what she was biologically intended to do.
I don't see infertility as "something to overcome" as much as an indicator that you need to choose a different path - adoption.
That's definitely one way to remedy that. Like I said, I am not sure what to think here. I just know many women who are devastated when they find out they cannot have children.
I know a lady that had no trouble adopting 2 in a row - about 1.5 years apart.
This would tend to negate your assertion of the waiting lists extending for years.
Congrats and God bless.
Where’d she get them?
Most people want babies that at least vaguely “look like them”.
Funny that you’d say that - these little boys look like brothers, but they definitely aren’t related.
I’m thinking that she went through “private adoption” to adopt them (I only know this about the second).
The description that I heard met my crude description above - a teenager. She obviously made a poor choice, but at least she had the moral character to not compound that error and kill the little boy.
And the Bible doesn't exclude women from work either. Proverbs 31 in particular shows the ideal woman as a sound investor, merchant, and social organizer. Just because people have perceived notions of the Bible as making women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, doesn't make them accurate. The idiotic feminist egalitarianism and the strawman patriarchal society make for a false dilemma. If women were not encouraged to go into particular fields and to give up motherhood, we would have a much better balance as a society.
Wasn't aware of that... probably women... :)
I was definitely referring to Proverbs 31 - the value above rubies woman.
The P31 woman is working to make the FAMILY successful and prosperous.
Feminists are narcissists who insist on fulfilling THEMSELVES to the exclusion of the family.
Just another facet of the war on the traditional family.
I work shifts in a medium-sized factory owned by a huge, multi-global corporation.
________
What other planets make up this consortium?
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