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December 3, 2021

Portland is Paying Bereavement Leave for Abortions?

 

Guest Post by Alexia Galkovskaya, President of the Portland State University Students for Life of America Group

GUEST POST: The city council of Portland, Oregon has recently approved a new bereavement leave policy for city employees, and abortion is included as a qualifying “bereavement.” This new policy allows city employees to take up to three days off work fully paid following an abortion. The definition of bereavement leave is “paid leave which is available to an employee at the time of death or funeral of a member of the employee’s immediate family.”  

 According to the pro-abortion stance, a preborn baby inside the mother’s womb isn’t a baby; the baby is just a clump of cells. However, if they want to say the baby is just a clump of cells and isn’t alive, why is the city council allowing bereavement leave in the case of abortion? The bereavement leave is for those who have lost a family member or close friend; yet, pro-abortion supporters maintain that the preborn aren’t alive and want to still take advantage of this paid leave.  

This is a huge contradiction in statements. It appears that, for the convenience of these pro-abortion employees, the personhood of the preborn child changes depending upon the circumstances. The preborn child is just a “clump of cells” when one doesn’t want to accept responsibility for their actions, but, when there are a few days off work at stake, the preborn becomes a dead family member. Contradictions in statements and logic are something we see repeatedly in the pro-abortion lobby. All of their arguments are flawed by such inconsistencies.  

 

 

This new policy has also clumped together miscarriage and abortion as two equal reasons for paid bereavement time off, which suggests that they are similar. In reality, miscarriage and abortion are the complete opposite of each other. A miscarriage is the unintentional loss of the preborn child; unchosen by the mother and typically mourned. On the other hand, an abortion is the intentional termination of the preborn child chosen by the mother. Ultimately, this begs the question: why should an employee receive bereavement leave for a death they chose to inflict?  

In an op-ed by SFLA Staff Writer, Caroline Wharton, she makes another point that “if pro-abortion supporters want to argue for paid abortion leave on the basis that women need recovery time after an abortion, that doesn’t fall under bereavement.” Her point smacks down yet another inadequate excuse for paid abortion leave.  

 

 

We need to consider why everything is done for the accessibility of women to have abortions. From demands for completely free abortions to paid abortion bereavement leave, everything is made convenient for a mother to choose abortion, but these abortions certainly don’t help the mother. Who does this abortion benefit in the long run? Not the preborn baby, who is violently killed. Not the mother, who is hurt and exploited. No one wins in an abortion—except for the abortion industry whose pockets just get deeper. Likewise, paid abortion bereavement leave really only helps the abortion industry and its allies.  

For more information on paid bereavement leave for abortions, click HERE to check out SFLA Staff Writer Caroline Wharton’s op-ed at Townhall.

Alexia Galkovskaya is the President of the Portland State University Students for Life of America Group.