Should you end up pregnant, it’s illegal to fire you for any reason, and you must either be accommodated or put on paid leave. During that first year of Covid, any nurse or doctor or other employee that had to work with the public was put on paid leave if pregnant if something non-public-facing couldn’t be found for them.
We also get 2/3 of our previous net salary for up to a year after the birth to stay home with our babies, and that was as a mother with a well-employed husband. There is further assistance for women in harder circumstances.
Granted, abortion is (was?) more strictly controlled here. You have to go for “conflict counseling,” but it’s available from both of the major churches (the Lutheran church’s organization aims to help you if you want to go through with the pregnancy, but will give you information on the costs and logistics of termination), other religious associations, as well as secular organizations with a pro-choice point of view (e.g.: ProFamilia). After the 12th week, however, you can only get an abortion if your life or health is in danger, or the fetus has a serious abnormality. Yes, Down Syndrome is an accepted ground for termination, but social support services for mentally-handicapped children and adults are far more comprehensive and reliable here than in the US.
Result? One of the lowest abortion rates in the world among countries where women (mostly) have bodily autonomy.
Why is it that people that want to outlaw abortion, and are willing to pay for the policing and prosecution resources necessary to enforce that law aren't willing to invest the same amount into contraception that would have a similar effect.
Is it better to clean up after an oil spill, or ensure that the spill doesn't happen in the first place?
Once you accept a fetus is a person, this same logic can also be extended to argue that life starts at ejaculation; impeding sperm from fertilizing an egg prevents the birth of a person, and is therefore tantamount to murder the same way abortion is.
It’s much more a tenuous an argument, which is why it’s only made by the most extreme people. But I guess that explains why Clarence Thomas is pushing to make contraception illegal today.
Because it's more exciting to punish Bad People for doing Bad Things than it is to create systems where the Bad People don't want or need to do Bad Things as much.
would rather a productive person today then a who knows what 20 years in the future.