Boston mayoral candidate Michelle Wu wants to extend paid family leave benefits to mothers who abort their unborn babies in elective abortions.
The New Boston Post reports Wu, a Democrat city council member who is running for mayor, supports adding abortion to a city ordinance that allows up to 12 weeks of paid family leave to parents.
Massachusetts passed a paid family leave law in 2018, and Boston has had a paid family leave ordinance in place since 2015, according to the report. The city ordinance allows parents to take up to 12 weeks of paid time off after the birth of a child, an adoption or stillbirth.
In March, Wu and two other city council members introduced an amendment to add abortion and miscarriage to the list, the Boston Globe reports.
Council member Lydia Edwards said the change would make the city benefits “more equitable.”
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“Otherwise would-be parents, who have lost their pregnancy, have to use sick leave or vacation leave, and I don’t find that that is appropriate or fair,” Edwards said earlier this year, according to the report. “I think this makes us more equitable. This makes us stronger as a city and acknowledging that there’s a loss of pregnancy and that a person may, they’re not required, but they may need to take leave in order to deal with that.”
While the amendment does recognize both abortion and miscarriage as losses, there is a big difference between the two. One is a parent’s choice to have their unborn child killed, the other is the natural, unintended death of an unborn child.
Boston leaders are not the only ones with the idea. Earlier this year, the British bank Monzo attracted news attention when it began offering new paid leave benefits for employees who miscarry or abort their unborn babies.
New Zealand also passed a law this year to require bereavement leave for parents who lose an unborn baby to miscarriage. The law allows mothers, fathers and adoptive parents to take up to three days of paid leave from work if their unborn child dies in a miscarriage or stillbirth. The law does not apply to parents whose unborn babies are killed in elective abortions.
