The short term disability coverage available through my employer covers pregnancy and maternity leave. Sorry bucko.
I’m sure it does. It’s still just a benefit, though, and not a legally required entitlement. Once again, how is a company that offers a 50% pay benefit for maternity leave acting “obscenely”?
milroyj, One way to think about it is to take a good, hard look at the way in which you are defining “entitlement”. This seems to be a rallying point buzzword with conservative types, but I am not really sure if they are being honest with themselves and everyone else in how they define it.
From a pure natural law point of view, our very species is not entitled to be alive. Through adaptation and luck, so far we have shown that we can be alive. The universe will let us know, much later, if we have any right (or are entitled) to be alive.
One of the adaptations that we have made is our society. Individuals do certain things in service of society, and in turn society dispenses certain benefits to the individual that would otherwise be much harder to obtain (for example, I really don’t know much about agriculture beyond my little patio garden, and am pretty happy to keep it that way).
My guess is that when conservatives claim that an individual is not entitled to whatever the current hot talking points are (welfare, food stamps medical care etc.) what they are really saying is that the individual, at that time, is taking more from the society than they are giving back.
To me, it all boils down to asking yourself the kind of society of which you want to be a member. I have not problem with a person honestly admitting that they would rather live in a world where society takes more from the individual than it gives back (I will disagree, but at least respect that person for having the honesty to look at their beliefs and the courage to articulate them).
At the end of the day, I am sure that your way of looking at things is 100% fair. That an employer is trading money for labor of some sort and that if that employer is not receiving any labor, he is within his rights to not give the employee any money.
The thing is, this is a very shortsighted way to look at things. As you yourself have conceded, it is (within reason) a good strategy for an employer to have benefits such that he retains good employees. In the long term, that will make the employer more money as turnover is bad for business (yes I am sure that there are exceptions to this, but it is a good general principal). It is also good for business to have employees that are loyal to you because you treat them in a humane and compassionate way.
And see, as I touched on earlier, this sort of compassion (the lack of which others are calling obscene) is good for society in the long run as well. Again, the better start we give people and the better we take care of them, the more stuff they are able to buy and the more they drive our consumption-based economy.
So if you are looking for an admission that what employers are doing is somehow justified, sure, you got it. Within the letter of the law, they are all good. I suppose that if you got yours, you really don’t need to worry about others.
What baffles me in this thread is that the OP seems to be doing everything in her power and within her means to improve her lot and still people are dropping to blow her crap. To be honest, this sort of behavior has baffled me for a long time and is a large part of why my politics are still pretty Liberal. Dismissing the current Republicans and Administration as something masquerading as Conservatives, I will admit that the basic, classic Conservative political philosophy has a lot to recommend it. That being said, I cannot get past the callousness and dismissive arrogance towards the suffering of others that so many people calling themselves Conservatives display.
Actually, most disability policies I’ve seen don’t consider normal uncomplicated pregnancy to be a disability. But the OP mentioned “Being on bedrest for much of [her] pregnancy.” That’s not normal, uncomplicated pregnancy and may well be convered by short-term disability. It would be on my policy.
Being unable to work for a few weeks after giving birth is one thing; being unable to work for the better part of a year is quite another.
Binarydrone, I believe that our social contract consists of the right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Note that it’s not the Right of Happiness.
That being said, I find statements like “an employer is within his rights not to give the employee any money” to be a non sequitur. One party has labor to offer, and another accepts (or declines) said labor for the value he is willing to pay for it. No more, and no less. No “rights” are involved, on either side.
BTW, what could be simpler, and more efficient, than that?
Oh, stop hijacking my thread! You fill me with grr! Fuck off, asshat! Go bitch about this in a new thread.
The simplest of all would be taking my boot and making you into a snowshoe. Talk about Pursuit of Happiness!
Now go start your new thread.
Meanwhile, let’s get back to bitching about Hayward! Who the fuck is practicing their recorder at 10:30 at night? Someone in the next complex over? Why why why?
Also, why are there soooo many pairs of discarded pants on my block today? Does springtime here mean it’s now time to be pantsless and fancy-free?
Feel free to get back to the original point of this thread- the Craptacular City of Hayward! If you have nothing to add about Hayward specifically, please feel free to bitch about the SF Bay in general or wherever you live.
If you’re going to post your private, personal, tragedies on a message board, in the Pit, then deal with the consequences.
My posts in this thread ARE NOT a hijack, for heaven’s sake.
I’ve asked you before, how is an employer granting you a 50% of salary benefit while you’re not working, obscene?
You are now talking about your political agenda, which is, in fact, a total hijack. Spew merrily about that somewhere else.
/dev/null
It’s sad that in this day and age of advanced medicine and technology that birth control still fails so often.* I know SO MANY PEOPLE who get pregnant or get someone pregnant out of wedlock. Actually, out of all my friends who have children, most were concieved out of wedlock. It’s really disturbing to me…
What I am getting to is, I don’t understand why it has to be like that. Just go get an abortion. If you find out you are pregnant by the time you miss your first period, an abortion is a simple outpatient procedure, just a little worse than your yearly pap smear. Isn’t that a better choice than upsetting your whole life, having to become poor and struggle and live in a bad neighborhood, etc., etc.? Get your life together, get married, save money, and THEN have children. Inkleberry’s situation could have been totally avoided by a simple medical procedure.
I am in a serious relationship right now and we are going to get married, but even so, if I ever got pregnant before we were married, I would get an abortion, because I swore I would never be one of those girls/women who have to have a shotgun wedding, or be an unwed mother. No offense to anyone, but to me, it is such a simple thing to avoid.
*Although I do believe that if used correctly, there is a truly minimal risk of getting pregnant… so I don’t think it’s as much of a flaw in medical science as it is human error.
NO! I am only replying to what you yourself have said in this thread. How is a benefit of 50% pay for maternity leave “obscene”? You said it, you defend it.
Ooops I meant who GOT pregnant or GOT someone pregnant…
Just another comment. Even though both my boyfriend and I have good jobs and make decent money etc. and are old enough (almost 30), I still would make the same choice… I wouldn’t throw away everything we worked so hard for when it could so easily be avoided. Sometimes the best and most responsible decisions are the hardest to make. Think logically and not with your emotions.
It’s very very simple when you aren’t facing it. It’s the simplest thing in the world to make decisions on situations you aren’t facing without actually having to live with the results.
And what may be a “simple medical procedure” for you may not be to others.
I swore up and down I would never have a suprise baby, I mean, isn’t that what multiple forms of BC used in conjunction are for? Sure, but after 12 years, I became that statistical anomaly. Given my track record of not getting pregnant, I doubt I suddenly failed to grasp the concept or use the tools correctly.
Be careful you aren’t jinxing yourself here.
Actually, this is some of the happiest I’ve ever been, although I’m having a stressful few months. I thought I couldn’t be happier than managing counseling services at a non-profit. I never thought I’d be a stay-at-home mom. But it rocks. It’s tough financially, and it can be stressful, but damn it’s fulfilling. I didn’t throw away a fucking thing.
You know what your choice is now, but what your choice will be if/when it happens is another thing.
And by the way, suggest my son would be better as an abortion again and I will hunt you down and beat the ever-living crap out of you.
It’s not really “sad” at all. For some, it’s a struggle, for others it’s a little easier (as it was for me, as I was a bit better established in life and a much more patient parent by that stage).
My mind is going over all sorts of snarky comments like “ah, they’re so cute when they’re all idealistic like that” but I don’t believe you’re being snarky at all, so it wouldn’t be fair of me to be snarky back. But honestly, without being too condescending, your “not getting it” is very idealistic. We’re humans, not perfectly programmed robots. Mistakes happen, condoms get holes, or the sponge doesn’t work or fit properly, pills get forgotten.
As to abortion being a mere medical procedure and “so simple”. That’s such an oversimplification and serves to completely ignore our human side. The medical part of the procedure may be “simple” (I don’t know, IANAD), but the other parts of the decision are anything but.
FTR, and this is very personal, I HAD had an abortion after my divorce. That was a big part of my decision to NOT abort my “late” in life oopsie baby. Sure some things were a bit of a struggle at first, but people survive, they persevere.
Are you suggesting that if one just waits until one is financially set that one makes a dandy and perfect parent? I know you’re not, I know you realize that kids, marriage and LIFE is a lot more complicated than that.
I mean, as I asked above…what are you suggesting? So, what if the family breaks up? Or dad dies, or both mom and dad become under or un-employed? Do the parents then no longer have the rights or ability to raise kids because they no longer have their “life together” aren’t married, and have lost the money they saved?
Um yeah, it IS… you don’t let anyone bully you into a marriage you don’t want. This is the 2000s, with all of your modern “just have an abortion, it’s so simple” mentality I am surprised to see you make the automatic correlation of “baby out of wedlock = shotgun wedding”.
Also, never say never. That’s not a fact or a threat or anything, just one of those mysterious karmic type thingies. When a person says never, frequently that thing they said ‘never" to is the VERY thing that they find themselves ending up doing. Just sayin’ 
I don’t know enough about medicine to know, and I’ll concede it’s higly likely that human error is involved in a great number of “oopsies”, but that wasn’t my point anyway.
My point, and it stands, was that an accident (whether the product’s fault OR the user’s), can happen to anyone, at anytime. Also anyone at anytime is at risk to find themselves in a reversal of fortune. A person canNOT “plan themselves into perfection” for their entire lives. To (probably misquote) quote John Lennon "life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.
Alrighty then, after we’ve established that all your personal choices including where you live and the size of your family are as you wanted and non-negotiable, then your rationale for complaining about life would be… what, exactly? That it’s unfair how the things we want aren’t easy to get? well, yeah, but… :rolleyes:
You know? For the longest time, when I was “working hard and saving my money” and “getting my life together”, I thought that having an unplanned pregnancy would just devestate me and RUIN (yes all caps) RUIN RUIN RUIN, my life. When I left my ex-husband, and a final “for old times sake” roll in the hay led to a surprise pregnancy when we’d freshly divorced and my daughter (I was suddenly a single parent) was barely one I Did and DO think that that was the best (albeit still heartwrenching) decision.
But when at nearly 31 I found out about my son, I was merely surprised. Not horrified, not terrified, not sure that the baby would lead me to ruin financially and otherwise. And he didn’t. A few years were a bit hard, but even then I KNEW beyond the shadow of a doubt that “this too shall pass”, and it did. Much more quickly than I’d planned that’s for sure.
He’s now a strapping 6’ .5" 13 year old lad (holy cow will he EVER stop growing? :D) sweet as pie and a great kid. To counter your “it’s so simple” well hell, so is this. I am no where CLOSE to being mom of the year, and somehow I managed to raise two great kids.
As to the “think logically and not with your emotions”. Hmmmmmm… Again, we’re humans, not Vulcans or robots what makes us human IS our emotion, so suggesting that we live life without it (and making a decision is part of living life) is akin to asking a woodworker to whip up a rocking chair with his teeth and fingernails.
OH good GRACIOUS, could that sentence have turned out worse? I swear I previewed a good three times.
Sigh…I hope the meaning came through, in other words, because of that one last “fling” I got pregnant, and then had an abortion which I feel was the right decision for THAT specific circumstance.
Agh…
Oh, for fuck’s sake–I was KIDDING --where is your sense of humor?
To be perfectly clear–why, yes, I *would * prefer to have CD’s stolen than to have my child’s face blown off…
What a premise–do we have anyone here that would say different?
:rolleyes:
[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
Oh, for fuck’s sake–I was KIDDING --where is your sense of humor?
To be perfectly clear–why, yes, I *would * prefer to have CD’s stolen than to have my child’s face blown off.QUOTE]
No, I didn’t honestly believe you believed anything else, I was just pointing out that I thought it was inappropriate comment. There are many things in this world that I find funny. Subtle irony, word play, Robin Williams, embarassing situations, even the occasional kick-in-the-balls schtick. But joking about how crime should be more violent or malicious is not one of them. Guess we’re just different that way.