The Patriot Post® · Bereavement Time Off for Abortion?

Portland, Oregon, is now giving bereavement leave to employees who have had an abortion. According to Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB), this policy change was enacted by the unanimous vote of the city council. Pro-abortion advocates are calling it the “cutting edge of abortion-rights legislation.”

Andrea Miller, president of the National Institute for Reproductive Health, gushed about how this policy would destigmatize abortions as well as workers having to explain or justify this type of leave with their bosses. “It’s important to recognize that employees need time to address their reproductive health needs,” Miller explained, “and they may need time to process what they’re experiencing.”

This change apparently came about as a result of policy passed in New Zealand regarding bereavement leave in cases of miscarriage or stillbirth, though Portland expanded it to include abortions as well. Michelle Rodriguez, senior policy advisor and force behind the policy change, said, “We need to figure out how to actually call [the stigma against abortion bereavement leave] out and be proudly saying that this city wants to support families as they’re going through this process.”

Both Miller and Rodriguez are incorrect in their stances, not just because they are pro-abortion, but because this policy they are promoting undermines the pro-choice movement’s main justification for existence.

The pro-choicers have long asserted that abortion doesn’t take a life because what the mother is terminating is only a clump of cells. They say it has no feeling or function, and it certainly isn’t a baby. We’re told by pro-abortion advocates that the baby wouldn’t feel anything anyway. After all, a baby in utero is like a braindead patient, and aborting him or her is simply pulling the plug. If only abortion was so painless to the babies being executed with the same poison given to death row inmates. That’s if they aren’t being pulled apart limb by limb out of their mother’s wombs. To pro-choice advocates, these young babies have no life or meaning and the act of abortion is akin to getting a haircut or having tonsils removed.

But, lo and behold, Portland’s bereavement policy actually affirms a pro-life precept.

Bereavement is when you’re mourning the loss of a loved one, usually through death. If pro-abortion advocates are admitting that this paid time off is for grieving a loss of a loved one — as is implied by the term bereavement — then they admit their number one justification for abortion is a lie. Abortion is the death of a baby. It’s as much of a loss as a miscarriage or a stillbirth, only it’s heinous because it’s a conscious choice on the mother’s part.

Portland has been the pit of chaos and rioting for almost two years. The police department is struggling to help the city amid rising crime and anti-police policies. It is home to a very left-wing mayor, Ted Wheeler. So it’s no surprise that policymakers would call abortion bereavement “groundbreaking.”

Ultimately, though, this policy underlines the truth. What’s being aborted is a baby, a life. It is a life that should be mourned. It is a life that shouldn’t have been taken in the first place.